


A Fire Doesn't Seek a Forest (It Burns it All the Same)

by thenoacat (noaacat)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Relationships, France. Just.... France., Harry has a sister, Lily Lives, Slytherin Harry, Young Harry really likes Tolkien., discontinued for now., disguises with name changes, further tags to be added following updates, so many disguises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-03-06 07:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 104,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3126551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noaacat/pseuds/thenoacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halloween, 1981: James Potter gave his life to defend his family.<br/>Halloween, 1986: Harry Potter's last public appearance.</p><p>Lily Potter (single mother, accomplished mediwitch, newspaper-proclaimed madwoman) would do anything to keep her family safe. Braving Azkaban, denouncing the most powerful wizards in Magical Britain, fleeing to France, and hiding her son's identity are only the first steps. A tale of love beyond reason, sanity, magic, and death.</p><p>cross-posted to ff.net</p><p>Discontinued</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Birth, Death, and What Comes After (Part I)

**Author's Note:**

> Please ignore the accent used briefly in this chapter. I was going to go back and fix it, but did not get to it before posting, and so it is linguistically dreadful.

 

0. 

 

_She dreamed she was the ocean._

_True peace came in the depths, where the world was silent. So deep that the light no longer shone, up was down and there was weightlessness in the crush of gravity._

_On the shores, the light of the distant sun lit water like fire, fire cold and sooth as glass. The light of ocean mirrors does not illuminate anything but itself: all else is shadow and silhouette. Winds and waves sounded like lost radios. Messages in sounds and bottles that would never reach those shores played the lament of minds forced apart._

_She dreamed she was the ocean, and through the cracks in the water slipped fragments. Past, present and to be, but she was the ocean, and oceans are not changed by the passing of time. The edges shift and the shores recede and what were mountains become islands, but what was ocean is still ocean._

_Her son, voice as shrill as seagulls, was the foghorn cradled in her arms. The siren sounding out the world; the sonar calling men as prey to lust and wrath. Others were only merfolk, curious and cruel but only merfolk; her son was sound in her arms, warmth that lit her shores._

_She dreamed she was the ocean, and there were whales that carried the weight of the world in her depths._

_A picture of the ocean hung on the hospital wall, but the air was still as too many deaths. Her son in the hands of a man that was not a man, that was more a man than the rest. He whose voice slipped in the cracks and tried to lure her to a line, to drag her to the surface._

_He was changing the words to the song. She reached out and took her son back into her arms, where he could swim her waters and be free. Rock-a-bye baby…_

_She dreamed she was the ocean, and her waters were calm, but never still. At sea, the baby’s basket rocked, floating in the soft waves. At shore, what was sand became water, and water became sand, and again, and again._

_Her son cried: he who held him did not know why. Her voice fell uselessly on the rocks, like the shells the gulls dropped were empty and distant. “Give him something to eat! Can’t you see he’ll starve if you keep letting the fish swim free!”_

_Depths couldn’t teach her son how to float. He would surely drown in her ocean._

But you are not the ocean. You can swim him to shore.

_She could push him to shore, but when his tiny feet took to land and he learned to run and to soar, all her mighty oceans could not save him from the fire._

Lily. You can’t keep dreaming. You are not the ocean, love.

_She found peace on the dark ocean floors, where the lost ships with journeys still held stories of promises—_

Let me be. You are not the ocean. Go to our son.

_—but there they would rot and rust and be buried, and she was the ocean, and her power was not her own, and while time does not change an ocean, oceans change the world in ways they cannot control._

Let go.

_And so the ocean became a selkie, and when she shed her skin she could carry her son safe to shore. And she brought with her the ocean, but she saw only the seas._

 

1.

 

Her own face stared up at her from a magazine, set carelessly on the top of the Healer’s inbox on her paper-strewn desk. Lily stiffened, but her mentor, Healer Engelhart, was not the type of woman who would have chosen the magazine for herself. She was far too busy for _Witch Weekly_ , and besides, she’d never trust a journalist to report her student’s words accurately.

LILY POTTER REVEALS ALL! the headline, too big for its space on the page, proclaimed. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE MOTHER OF THE BOY WHO LIVED.

Of course Lily had personally edited the article, but she was painfully aware of her youth. At twenty-one, most of the magical world still saw her as too young to fill the shoes fate had handed her. If fame had come differently, the witches’ tabloids would be filled with slander. How thrilled they would have been to know that her son had been an accident—poor planning and a youthful fear that life was too short to pass the chance. Fate had intervened: Harry Potter would never be spoken of as an accident. Lily would make sure of that.

Healer Laura Engelhart, Director of Understudies and Third Surgeon, came in just as Lily made her move to flip the magazine over. Hawkish eyes missed nothing, but years of working in a hospital had given the Healer a good touch of tact. She said nothing of it as she hurried around her desk, pushing aside a few papers to clear space for the file she placed between them. “Good morning, Lily.”

Though not, by nature, a kindly woman, the Healer was not so cruel as her reputation would rumor. She simply got to the point without the hassle of excessive friendliness. Lily loved her for it. Loved the way she never stuck her nose where it wasn’t needed, but knew each of her students’ personal situations, and checked in with her long-term patients regularly even when she hadn’t slept in twenty hours herself.

“Hello, Laura,” Lily replied. “Please, I’ve had enough of exchanging pleasantries to last me a lifetime. Let’s get straight to the point, shall we?”

 

 

2.

 

James and Lily Potter had been married in secrecy shortly following their graduation from Hogwarts. It had been necessary; they had rejected an offer from Voldemort himself, and that made them targets. The wedding followed a meeting of the Order of the Pheonix, and for a night and three and a half years they lived in a pocket of music, dancing, and joy that defied the times. The house they shared at Godric’s Hollow was filled with good food and better friends, for a time, and even when the world squeezed them in too tight for all that, it held those closest to them, and soon, their son. And even when it was just Lily, James, and Harry, everything she could have hoped for in life was in that house.

And then it was gone.

It had taken them hours to pry Lily away from her son long enough to be sure they were both in no lingering danger. Her son, with the scar like lightning tearing down from the sky etched across his forehead. Her son, who as she held him tightly in her arms, as ready to die as James already had, had not uttered a single cry. She remembered the green light, which she had seen too many times before. She remembered the shrieking, revolting, wretched sound as Voldemort’s body crumbled into nothingness. The fell chill, the icy blast that passed through her like walking through a ghost.

“They’re not going to give him a trial,” Remus said one day. How long had passed since they had moved her here, a closed room with heavy wards? How long had she been locked away with her son and an enchanted window to the sea? She did not know when Remus had come, or if he had been there the whole time, or if he was even there at all—but he had to be.

“Who?” she had asked. She did not know how long after. Time was difficult to track. The waves beating against the cliffs were too difficult to keep track when they were all, in the end, all part of one greater swell. But she had been too long at sea, and between _flashes of green and waves of ghostly chill_ she had heard Remus’ voice, and that drew her out of the depths.

Remus, who had always been better at these things than the others, passed her a glass of clear potion and didn’t ask about her sudden recovery.

“Sirius,” he answered, trying and failing to sound matter of fact. She had forgotten what she was questioning, but he spoke on, and she anchored against his voice. “They’ve sent him straight to Azkaban for what he did.”

“What he did?” she repeated. Harry began to fuss; she adjusted him in her arms and wondered when he had gotten so big. When she finally looked at Remus, he was staring right at her.

“Lily,” he said, slowly. “James is—”

“Dead,” she said. She tried to say. The word was like a clap of waves against the earth. Hollow. She stroked the fine hair on Harry’s head. She couldn’t think about James, about _the green light and the man_ —no, monster, who had taken her husband from them—

She cleared her throat, and urged her lungs to breath again. Remus was right there, Harry, in her arms. She grasped at the present as tightly as she could. “What does Sirius have to do with that?” She looked around, vaguely wondering where the man was. She was so used to him standing at Remus’ shoulder, keeping an eye on him so he didn’t look like—like this. Like he’d been through hell and only come out dragged along by a thestral.

The way his eyebrows pinched made his tired face look just as confused as she felt. His voice was faltering: “After—after everything? When Peter found him—he murdered him, Lily. Blew up the whole street—Sirius did—right in the middle of Muggle London.”

“Peter,” she said, vaguely. She wanted to sound cold, but she did not have the energy to feel angry, she just felt—tired. It had been Peter all along, and they had been too blind to see it. They had always overlooked poor Peter, no matter how they tried to make room for him in their world. He’d always been straggling after his friends. “Sirius does have a tendency to over-react, but…” She paused. “Why aren’t they giving him a trial? It wasn’t the right way to deal with—but the Death Eater Clause—”

“Death Eater Clause?” Remus echoed. “Lily, Sirius was working for Voldemort! He gave up the secret of Godric’s Hollow and murdered Peter! People are demanding the kiss!”

“What are you…” Things finally started to fall into place, just as Harry woke up and started to cry. She shushed him gently. _When had he gotten so big?_ “Remus,” she said as gently as she could. “Sirius wasn’t the secret keeper.”

She would not choke on it, their fatal flaw. She would not. They hadn’t even known what Peter had done until the door started to shake as the wards began to fall. _Lily, take Harry—I’ll hold him off—the green light through the frame of the door—_

“Lily.” Remus’ voice broke through the waves, and she opened her eyes. “Lily, what are you talking about?”

She tried to focus on his hands, but her eyes were still swimming—no, his hands were shaking. She was already reaching out with a hand to check his forehead. He was hot, but then again, he always was.

“We were afraid,” she said slowly, “That they would use you to get to Sirius. He was at wit’s end, trying to keep us, and you safe, and we couldn’t ask you, in case they already had you, so we called Peter—”

“No—”

“—and asked him—”

“ _—no—”_

“—and that night was—”

She cut herself off. The last of he will power flooding out of her. Harry, awake now, was grabbing at her hair. Remus had stood in the heat of things, and now stared down at her, eyes wide. Her vision kept blurring, and she realized she was crying— _green light and a cold air—_

“Lily, he’s been in Azkaban for two months,” Remus choked out, when he finally found his voice. “He’s been in—”

Harry wailed, louder than before, and the both of them finally looked at him. Remus reached down and took Harry, bouncing the child against his shoulder.

“Two months?” Lily echoed. She could not—but Remus held Harry like he had done it a thousand times before, and found the bowl of food and spoon to feed him with.

“We have to tell Dumbledore,” Remus was saying as he patiently helped Harry eat, ignoring the globs of food the child dribbled onto his shabby jacket. “He’ll know what to do.”

 _Two months?_ “Yes,” said, Lily absently. “Is there a quill—I’ll write him myself. Or maybe the Floo—”

“There’s not one in here,” Remus said, “and trust me, you don’t want to go outside just yet.” He pulled his wand out with his spoon holding hand and waved them both at her, sending bits of food across the white bedspread. Until that moment she hadn’t realized it, but she knew exactly where she was now: one of the sealed rooms in the quarantine ward at St. Mungos. It was the closest thing the hospital had to a high-security room—indeed, there had been several fugitives awaiting trial mended in these rooms, just to the point that they were in no danger of dying prematurely before the aurors would swoop in to deposit them on the stand. The thought of it made Lily shiver, sending any comfort she might have drawn from the familiar location out the enchanted window.

She swung her feet out from under the covers of the bed, careful not to knock the writing materials Remus had conjured for her onto the floor, and found herself clothed in the simple garb that only long-term patients wore. “Remus, she said, her training nagging at her, “We should call a healer, shouldn’t we? If it’s been two months there are all sorts of tests they’ll want to be running.”

“We can, if you’d like,” he said. “But there’s only the emergency notice. They’ve been doing identity checks on everyone before they let them on this floor, in light of the attacks…”

“Attacks?”

Remus sighed. “They’ll be a lot to catch you up on, Lily, but there’ll be a nurse in here in fifteen minutes, and they won’t give you the time to breath after that, will they? Lily, please.”

She did not need to look at him to understand what Remus was asking—why he was asking—but she did. He was clinging to Harry as tightly as she had been, the minutes before. She wondered if this was how he had hoped to cope with everything, to try to take care of her and Harry and ignore himself, as he was so proe to do. But now, she realized, there was something like hope fueling his desperation.

_Two months?_

_The green light—take Harry and go!_

Her first attempt at standing did not go very far, because her legs seemed disinclined to obey her. She would have to ask the nurse later; Remus’ answers would do little to explain the state she had been in for the previous two months, medically. She was not angry in the slightest—and, in fact, she was herself confused. Sirius had been in Azkaban for two months, and she was thinking about other things? Her anger finally reared it’s head in her gut, propelling her to her feet, and on stiff legs she took the writing supplies to the small table Remus sat at, inking the quill and setting it to a parchment in a haste that defied her body’s reluctance to move.

“There,” she said, when the letter was composed. She blew the last of the ink dry and passed it across the table, where Remus regarded it wide-eyed, as though he had been handed the Holy Grail. She took her son back from him, smoothening the soft black hair away from the angry red scar etched across his forehead. It would mark him for the rest of his life, she knew. Would he be teased in school? Would he try to hide it under bangs, or wear it proud? Her throat clenched as she imagined him, a young James, and the realization— _the green light. Take Harry—_ hit her gut. How revolting it felt to her, to sit here thinking of children when James was dead, Remus a wreck, and Sirius in Merlin knows what condition.

“Send it to Dumbledore,” she said, trying to assure her friend that at least one thing hopeless could be salvaged before it’s end. For once, she found herself doubting her own words. The feeling was new, and wholly unpleasant, so she swallowed it. “He’ll know what to do.”

 

 

3. 

 

Remus briefly made a quiet escape in the flurry of activity that filled her room when they realized she was awake, but though the pair of them spent the afternoon only half-listening to the healers, they did not hear back from Dumbledore that evening. Nor did he arrive the next day, when the Minister of Magic and an entourage of faces she only half-recognized arrived to award Harry and herself Order of Merlin, Second Class awards, much to her confusion.

It was Remus, not Dumbledore, who explained that Voldemort had vanished, presumed dead, and that the legitimens who had looked into Harry’s young mind had seen the impossible: a killing curse she had tried to shield him from had somehow rebounded off the child and killed the Dark Lord. No Dumbledore, head of the Order of the Pheonix, to explain that they were calling her son the Boy Who Lived, the Child of Light, as the other members were allowed in for brief, tearful visits. Or when she learned the that Frank and Alice Longbottom, despite all precautions, had been attacked as well, and were now two bodies in beds down the hall, minds lost to the torture of Bellatrix Lestrange. Or when she first left the room, and despite the security was set on by four plain-clothes journalists by the time she’d reached the end of the hall.

When two weeks passed and they hadn’t heard from Dumbledore—even after several journalists had published quotes of her begging for Sirius’ fair trial, and several floo calls to an empty office at Hogwarts—that it became clear to Lily she would be receiving no answer. What had started as concern at his absence had grown into cold fury. He was not so busy with his role as a member of the Wizengamot that he had not been spotted by various people in the Magical Villages. Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, even Godric’s Hollow—but no word to Lily or Remus or anyone else. Why he would not come to their aid, why, when he was a member of the Wizengamot, the magical world’s justice system, did he not call for justice?

Remus waned as the moon waned, overcome, it seemed, by the guilt of letting Sirius waste away in Azkaban. The only correspondence that returned from the ministry promised the legal department would look into scheduling a trial when more pressing matters had been dealt with. Lily stopped reminding herself that Sirius may have killed Peter. Frankly, she was finding it harder to care, the more the reality of James’ death set in—

— _a green light. Take Harry and—_

That’s it,” she said, setting down the _Daily Prophet_ , the morning after the full moon. Remus had gone to the Coquet Island, uninhabited with winter, for the full moon. She could not transform the way James and Sirius could, and she did not trust to leave Harry with anyone else, not even the Order, but Lily could at least help the man find a safe place to change and offer a haven to recover. He was always hungry after the full moon, if Sirius’ tasteless jokes were anything to go by, so she made twice their usual breakfast fare and pretended nothing was different as he sat at the table, dark circles under his eyes as he bounced Harry on his knee.

“Lily,” he said tiredly. He knew that face. He knew what she had found in the _Prophet,_ or what she hadent found, rather. “Don’t do anything rash, whatever you’re thinking of.”

“Rash?” she echoed, slapping marmalade onto her toast.

Remus wasn’t eating, really. Not for lack of appetite; he had scarfed down the first sausage alarmingly quickly for one of his small stature before his mind seemed to get lost in other things.

“I’m sick of sitting here doing nothing, waiting for someone else to set Sirius free. Hasn’t every newspaper in the country—hell, the whole of Europe has been declaring me some sort of hero of light?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Eat your breakfast,” she said, taking a big bite of toast and chewing it with unnatural gusto. “I’ll show them what it means to want justice.”

“What are you going to do?” Remus asked. He sounded too tired to be afraid of her, though in the ten years since they had met he had learned that an angry Lily was not a force to take lightly. “We tried Dumbledore. What are you going to do? March into Azkaban yourself?”

“Exactly,” Lily said, and took another bite of her toast as though she would show her force of will in the simple act.

Remus gaped. “But—”

“Eat your breakfast,” she repeated, throwing her own toast back on to her plate as she stood. Her cloak was flying towards her almost before she had her wand out to summon it.

She left Remus with his mouth hanging open stupidly, the child on his knee beginning to cry “ _Remy, Remy!”_ at the sound of the door slamming shut behind her as Lily flew out of the apartment.

 

 

4.

 

They had chosen a spot in a suburb of Muggle London to hide out from the press that seemed determined to document her son’s every breath, and so Lil had to walk a bit before she reached the apparation point closest to her. The walk did anything but clear her mind. In fact, it mostly made her agitation fester and grow. She was angry—angry at Dumbledore, who had abandoned them; Angry at the magical world, for only seeing what it wanted to see; angry at herself, for trying to rely on a system, like a naïve child. She couldn’t be a child anymore. She was twenty-two years old, a widowed, single mother with lives to save and people to protect. There was no space in her life for blindness.

She reached the apparation point and traveled to the alley beside the Leaky Cauldron, donning her cloak and putting up the hood. She slipped inside behind a family, and stuck to the shadows of the room as she made her way around to the floo. It was public, so long as you had your own powder, which she drew out from a pocket inside her cloak.

She travelled first to her mentor’s office at St. Mungo’s. Azkaban would not be connected to the public floo, but Lily had been to Azkaban once before. In her training at the hospital, the year following her graduation from Hogwarts and shortly after marrying James, the Healer she was shadowing was called to the prison after a suicide attempt by one of the inmates. She was not sure if every floo in St. Mungo’s was connected to Azkaban, as the one she had left in had been in a different ward. Though her mentor was not in office, it would not hurt to try, so she drew out some fresh powder, whispered _Azkaban_ , and whirled away.

As her feet set down in the distant fire, she could feel the cold sinking out from her bones, as though they had split and the marrow had spilled out like ice water. The aurors, standing startled, were wearing extra cloaks, and though the room was warm enough in the physical sense they still shivered.

“Sorry,” said one of the two aurors, a short man. He didn’t look sorry, the way he had his wand out. “Sorry, but we aren’t expecting no one jus’ yet. Who are you, then?”

She regarded him. Not a member of the Order, and clearly a guard of little use from the way his hands shook. They’d been following the trials in the newspapers, when they weren’t trying to connect with people they hadn’t seen in years, to get Sirius free. Azkaban was full—Azkaban, which had not been full even in the purge of the 1860s, even after the fall of Grindlewald. As such, guards had been pulled from anywhere they could be found. He probably had an Auror’s license, rushed through so they’d have another pair of boots filled. But he was probably one of the hundreds who had been in hiding, too scared to face the reality of conflict.

The girl—and Lily remembered her, a younger Ravenclaw when she had graduated—recognized Lily first and slapped her partner’s hand down. “That’s Lily Potter, you idiot!” she cried. Lily sighed and stepped out of the floo.

“Ow! Merlin,” said the man, rubbing his arm. He had an intensely fake Australian accent so strong it was almost comical, like an American movie character, though he hadn’t bothered to change his speech patterns to match his—what was it, a disguise? “What’s that for?”

“Sorry, Lily—I mean, ma’am,” the girl said with all the dignity one could muster when wearing a muffler indoors. She pulled it away from her face a bit. “Don’t mind this idiot. Are you here for Sirius Black, then?”

She was surprised, but then again, they had been trying the papers for help. “Yes, she said, racking her mind for the girl’s name. “I am, Babette.”

“’Cause we read the papers,” the girl went on. “They’ve been saying he’s a _murderer_. But I remember him from school, don’t I? An’ he was never like, oh, Mal-Finger, was he? And I was telling John—wasn’t I, John—I was telling him—”

“Babette,” said Lily. “I’m here for Sirius, and I don’t really care what you’ve read or said.”

“Well, thing is,” said Babette, “We’ve been we aren’t supposed to let anyone out, ‘cept on auror’s orders, you see? And—you’re not an auror, are you Lily? No, I didn’t think so, you went to the healers, right? That’s what the papers said—and if you’re not an auror or some such we can’t exactly just let him out, can we? Mad-Eye’d have my head.”

“Babette,” Lily said, “You’re not an auror yourself, are you?”

“Well, not strictly speaking, no,” the girl said. “But I’ve started my training. Why do you ask?”

“They’ve still put you on guard duty? Here?”

“Well, yes, ‘cause there isn’t exactly an excess of aurors, is there?”

“So you’re just a trainee, but you can still move people in and out, under orders?”

“Uh—”

“Technically, Babette, you can, can’t you?”

“Well yes,” said Babette, “But only if it comes from a higher-up, right? And Lily, you aren’t—I know you were head girl and all, but that doesn’t mean nothing now, does it?”

“Well, said Lily, “Sirius Black has been an Auror trainee for almost three years now. That puts him higher up than you. And I’m willing to bet that if you ask, he’d be glad to give you orders to let him free.”

Babette lit up. Her heart was in the right place, but Lily expected it was more the clever work-around that excited her. Ravenclaws always loved using logic to cheat the system, so long as there was no actual cheating going on. That was a different matter entirely.

“Babs, you can’t!” her partner—John—cried. “We’re guards, we can’t just go letting people out! Especially dangerous murderers.”

“Oh, shut your trap, John,” Babette said crossly. She was already moving across the room to open the door. Lily took a few steps after her. “What do you know about dangerous murderers? You’ve been hiding in Canada since you left school. Only thing that’d hurt you in Canada is the wildlife, if your ugly mug didn’t send ‘em screaming. ‘sides, I’ve talked to Black, haven’t I? Not exactly the murderous sort.”

“N—no! I won’t shut up!” John said, as fiercely as he could muster. He put his wand up again, pointed at Lily, but his hand was shaking so violently he would be more likely to his the ceiling than her. Lily sighed. He reminded her of Peter, in the early years. Trying so hard to stand up for himself—so hard he would easily do more damage than good.

“Look,” she said, “Why don’t you go make your rounds? You’re obviously not going to let anyone else know that I’m here, are you? So no need to go concerning yourself over it, right?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do!” John cried. He turned to hurry past her towards the floo, and Lily, as soon as he passed, whipped out her wand to do a quick petrification spell.

“I didn’t see that,” Babette said, turning back as John hit the floor. “I really didn’t. I was facing the other way. I wouldn’t see you, say, turn his hair pink, if you wanted to.”

“Every second we waste here Sirius is out there, at the mercy of those foul creatures,” Lily snapped. “Now hurry, Babette. We’ve got to help him. Can’t you see?”

“But you—you’d never just spell someone and leave them behind!  You were always the one keeping James Potter, and—and Sirius Black in check! Weren’t you?”

“Sure,” said Lily. “And someone has to keep them alive. And that’s what I’m here to do.”

“Right,” said Babette. She reached out for the steel handle of the heavy door, but paused and looked back at Lily. “You don’t happen to know the patronus charm, do you? ‘cause I amn’t hardly any good, and the laterns don’t do much, really…”

Lily silently raised her wand. The patronus charm had been one of the first upper level charms she’d learned. Dementors had always bothered her. Their very existence—

—but as she held the wand aloft, she realized she could not cast the spell. There was a spark of happiness, a bit of light that you had to focus on in order to cast something so pure. She couldn’t find it. She didn’t even know where to start looking. She put her wand down, and shook her head.

Babette sighed. “Aw, well. Come on, then. Give’s me the creeps, but there’s nothing to be done.”

The icy cold was worse when they left the guardhouse. It wasn’t just the fire they left behind, it was the carms woven into the stone to keep what little cheer could be found in such a place. Babette took two lanterns from their hooks in the wall beside the door, and tapped them each with her wand until they glowed with a silvery light. It was a poor imitation of a patronus, but better than nothing. She handed Lily one and led the way down the stone hallway.

It had been bright in London, a beautiful day for January, but here the sky was always dark, and within the walls little light could permeate the darkness. Despite their gentle glow, the lanterns cast harsh shadows in every direction, the type that as the child Lily had been before she knew about magic beyond her own intuition had once thought of as ghosts. It was a silly notion—ghosts could not be found in such lights—but Lily couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of all the spirits that must haunt this place.

The fortress had been built long ago, by a dark wizard intent on luring muggles in for his own cruel purposes. From then on it had been haunted not by their ghosts, but Dementors. Wherever such foul creatures had come from, they lived in the worst of places, those filled only with pain and grief. It was true, they fed on happy memories, but their infestations occurred in places where there was no joy to be found to begin with.

Lily shuddered to think of Sirius in such a place. Sirius, whose life had been such pain, from being born into as archaic a family as the Blacks to the loss of his younger brother—even if he would never say it, his family had always held such sway over the condition of his heart. He had always been kept afloat by an addiction to joy. He bonded tightly to his friends, never mind anyone he dared pursue a relationship with, and found the thrill of a good prank among the most appealing joys in the world James had always urged him on, of course—but this was hardly the place to think of James.

They walked on for what seemed like far too long, without running into another soul. It was several minutes before Lily’s eyes adjusted to the light well enough to realize that they walked down a hall lined with cells. She held up her lantern a bit closer to one, peering in as she walked by. The faces inside were wide-eyed and gaunt, staring out at her but seeing nothing but the light. One lunged out from the other side, reaching through the bars to try and grab the lantern. Lily held it just out of reach.

“Careful,” said Babette. “We’re not supposed to let them get too close to the light. They’ll get addicted.”

“Addicted?” the prisoner spat through the bars. The hair on their head was long and scraggly, skin leather and traced with grime. Lily couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but the face was so inhuman she couldn’t help but wonder if such identity as sex or gender would even matter any more. “Addicted?” the prisoner rasped again. “Yes, pretty girl, bring the light a bit closer, yet? Let us feel the light, get addicted. Let us, if you will.”

“Now you stop it, Anders!” Babette Snapped crossly. “Lily, come on. We’re not far yet.”

But Lily did not move. She was too busy looking into the bulging eyes. The cataracts were covering the pupils with a milky glow. But as she leaned in—a bit closer—the other hand swept out of the cell and snagged her shirt.

Above them, the dark sky gave a wretched shriek.

“Lily!” Babette shouted, from what seemed like a great distance. A dementor swooped down out of the sky, closer—

—and Lily jabbed the end of her wand into the hand that had grabbed her. It was only a spark charm, but the prisoner wailed like they had been shot, and retreated back into the shadows so quickly they might as well have apparated.

“No! Go away!” Babette was shouting up at the sky. Lily, centered again, looked up into the sky and saw that it was not one dementor, but four, and there were three more trailing closer. Babette waved her lantern, and the fell creatures pulled back. “There’s nothing to see here,” the girl called. Her voice cracked with nerves. “Go find someone else to bother, you miserable beasts!”

They seemed to stare down at the pair of them. No, that wasn’t accurate: they seemed to be focusing directly on Lily. It was impossible to say, what with the hoods and lack of humanoid features, but the longer they hung there, the more Lily was certain. She held the lantern closer to her face and stared back, thinking of Harry.

Eventually the dementors turned and floated away.

“Merlin,” Babette swore on the breath she’d bee holding. Lily kept the lantern up, watching the retreating shadows. “That was a close one. Nasty buggers. What were you doing so close like that, Lily? Don’t you realize that they’re dangerous, them in here? We’re in ward seven, where the real crazies go. They threw Black in here after he was found laughing. Hysterics, of course, but they didn’t figure that.”

Lily slipped her wand back into the holster in her cloak sleeve. “What was that?” she asked, nodding towards the cell.

“Matriem Anders. Got the block after she killed both her children, fourteen years ago, now.”

“No that’s not—her eyes, Babette. What happened to her eyes?”

“Oh, they get like that, after a while,” Babette said lamely. “I don’t know if there’s a reason why. They don’t need to see much in here, do they, though? Just what daylight gets in, an’ us walking by. Now can we go?”

Lily nodded, and they hurried on. It was a short trip to Sirius’ cell from there, one more left turn. His cell was at an end to the hall. There was a long arrow-shaft-like windown in his wall, casting a thin strip of light across the cell and onto a stone ledge built into the opposite side. There, huddled up in a ball, was a figure clawing at his own hair. Lily winced.

“Open the door, Babette,” she said quietly.

“You’ll want to give it a clang first. They can be aggressive, you know…”

“Sirius won’t hurt me,” Lily said. “Open it!”

Reluctantly the girl tapped her wand on the heavy lock. It clicked, and the door swung inwards. Lily stepped inside, as reluctantly as Babette had been to so much as open the door, and held the lantern out between them.

“Sirius,” she called softly. The figure did not move. “Sirius, it’s Lily.”

“Lily?” a rustling voice rasped back. Slowly, as though he had been huddled in position for a lifetime, the figure lifted his head to look at her. Lily swallowed—it was Sirius, definitely, but he looked several years older than the last time she had seen him. The bright glow that once filled his defiant face had vanished, leaving his skin pale and semi-translucent as it stretched across his bones. The laughter lines that normally creased his face were now sharper, sharp like wrinkles that stood against his youth. They were only twenty-two, but he could have passed as Lily’s father, like this.

She took off her cloak slowly, stepping towards him. She didn’t know how much damage had been done, sitting alone in the dark, prey to the dementors’ hunger for nearly three months. “Yes, Sirius,” she said, “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Lily—it wasn’t—it wasn’t me!” he begged. He lunged at her the way Anders had, but Lily caught him before he could grab her too violently, setting the lantern on the stone slab. “I didn’t—it was Peter—Peter! He—he—he—”

“Sirius,” Lily said. “I know. We’re getting you out of here.” She eased him back down into a sitting position, and with one hand she removed her cloak, keeping a grip on Sirius’ arm with the other. “Don’t worry,” she soothed, placing the cloak over his shoulders. It covered his frame nearly completely. Lily was a good six inches shorter than Sirius, and she was a slender woman, but he seemed to swim in her cloak. His wide eyes were searching her face.

“Lily,” he rasped, “Harry—he—”

“He’s safe,” she said. “He’s with Remus. Everything is okay, Sirius.”

He frowned, but seemed to accept her answer.

“Lily,” Babette said, “I’m all for touching reunions, but I do need that order, you know. For posterity’s sake. That and I can’t cast the spell releasing him without it.”

“Right,” said Lily. “Sirius, Babette is an auror trainee. She’s a few years behind you, so you have seniority. So if you tell her to let you free, she can legally let you go.”

Sirius opened his mouth, shut it again, and then opened it a second time, pulling back the slack corners slightly into something like a grimace. “Lily Evans,” he admonished quietly. “Are you breaking the rules?”

“Bending them, Sirius. Now tell her to let you free.”

He looked past her, to where Babette lingered in the door. “Uh—” he rasped, and cleared his throat a bit to speak up louder. “I order you to let me free, Babs.”

She tilted her head, but waved her wand anyways, and whatever spell she was casting seemed to work. “Good enough for me,” she said. “Now that’ll be your name off the ledger, so if we can just hurry along before anyone notices…”

Lily helped Sirius to his feet. It wasn’t easy—she almost thought the cloak would be too heavy for him—but once he had his footing he seemed to find his strength. She handed him the lantern, too, and Sirius took it wordlessly. They stepped out of the cell and followed Babette back down the hallways towards the guard tower.

 

 

1.

 

Healer Engelhart tapped the file on the desk between them.

“So,” she said, “Are we going to talk about this?”

“You can just tell me, you know,” said Lily. “I can handle these sorts of things, can’t I?”

“You can handle much. Not everything, though.”

Lily frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” said the Healer. “But you already know the answer. I’m curious, then, as to why you’re here.”

Lily blinked, then slumped back into her seat. It was as though the weight had lifted out of her gut and settle onto her shoulders. “It really is true, then,” she whispered. Her hands settled on her gut, grasping the fabric of her blouse subconsciously. “Somehow…”

“Lily,” the Healer said, when she settled into silence, “You don’t have to go through with his, you know. There are options. You should not feel obligated to anything.”

Lily gave her a sharp look, and sat up again. “No,” she said firmly. “If I’ve ever had to do anything, it is this. For Harry, if not James.”

“What about for yourself?”

“For myself?” Lily echoed. She paused. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Have a look,” said the Healer, letting the question slide.  Lily gave her a long look before reaching out to grab the file.

She opened it with a tremble in her hands. There, in the standard print of a medical quill, was proof: she was pregnant. Her second child was due in six months, August. That would make Harry two already. But in the long run, he would hardly know that a time existed without his little—sister. A girl. James had wanted a girl.

“If you’re going to go through with this,” said the Healer, “You can’t keep up with all this excitement, Lily.”

“Excitement?”

“Giving press conferences. Harassing the ministry. Not two weeks ago, you broke into Azkaban and kidnapped a high-security prisoner!”

“Sirius is innocent,” Lily said automatically.

“So I’ve heard. But dementors and babies are a dangerous combination. The damage that could be done to a child…”

“No more dementors,” Lily agreed. “And no more press conferences.” She set the file down beside the magazine, which she pointed at with her pinky finger. “That was supposed to be the end of it. I can hardly have reporters breathing down our necks all the time and expect Harry to turn out all right, can I? I told you last time—”

“So you’re still planning on leaving.”

“Now more than ever. No one can know that Harry Potter has a sister.”

“Why ever not?”

“Have you seen the people on the streets? We go into Diagon Alley and we’re lucky to make it ten feet before they’re on us.”

“They don’t mean any harm. You’re a hero, Lily.”

“Hardly. I’m a survivor. So is Harry. There’s a difference.” The lines on her face set. Since James had died, her once light features had grown still. “He deserves better. No child should be idolized for their pain.”

“So you want to take him away from it entirely. Will that solve anything, in the long run? Won’t the stories only become more fantastical?”

“Perhaps,” Lily said, “But to keep him safe? I would cross worlds, Laura. He’s all I have left.”

“And your friends—Remus, Black?”

“Them too, of course,” she acquiesced. “But they’re different.”

“You could live without them.”

“If it came to it. Yes.”

“But they’re worth enough to go storming Azkaban?”

Lily sighed. “I could leave them behind, yes. It doesn’t mean I want to, or that I should abandon them now. Remus is dear to me, and Sirius loved James as dearly as I did. They were like brothers, Laura, I couldn’t let him rot away, blamed for the murder of his best friend. Haven’t you seen what Azkaban does to people?”

She thought back to the eyes of the prisoner that had lunged at her, and shuddered. The image had come to her in nightmares several times isnce; the eyes finding home on her face, or Sirius’, or Remus’, or Harry’s. Desperation and doom.

Of course, that was between the other nightmares. _A green light—_

“Where will you go?”

“An apartment in Paris, or elsewhere in France. Sirius has written a cousin to make some inquiries. We’ve been living in muggle apartments here; as long as they’re warded enough most wizards can’t find them. You’d be amazed how intimidated some people are by muggles. If everything works out, the children will live there, until it is time for Hogwarts. If that is still an option, at that point.”

“Where else would you send them? Beauxbatons?”

“If it were safe,” she said. “I want to apply to transfer to the French Mediwitch Institute. It won’t be easy, but once I get citizenship…”

“You want me to write you a recommendation, don’t you?”

“Well,” said Lily, “Yes. Unless you don’t think I meet their standards.”

Engelhart snorted. “Of course you do. But I won’t, not until well after this child is born. Your education is already piecewise enough. It can wait until after.”

“Of course. I’m not leaving until then, either. I think she has to be born on British soil, for Hogwarts to automatically accept her. And we’ve still got things to sort regarding Sirius’ innocence, and he needs our help to recover. You should have seen him…”

“I can imagine,” said the Healer. “But no charging places for your daring rescues, or barring people likely to hex you from entering…”

“I can’t promise that, but I will do everything in my power to keep this baby safe. She’s just what Harry needs. He lost his father, Laura, and Sirius and Remus can only be so much. Sirius wants to get back to his auror training, and Remus is on the hunt for a job.”

“Well, don’t place too much on this baby. She’ll just be one child. And she’s no Harry Potter, to borrow that horrible phrase. One girl can’t solve the world’s problems.”

“Neither can one boy, but they’ll expect that of him. I won’t let them ruin him, Laura. I won’t.”

Lily stood. She had gotten what she came for, and though she hadn’t known what result she had wanted she would carry out the one given to her. “Thank you, Laura,” she said, as her mentor stood to follow her to the fireplace. “I’ll be in contact with you soon, I think. No one can find out about this.”

Engelhart sighed. “I’ll try whatever I can to help, Lily, but you won’t make it easy. You never do.”

 


	2. Birth, Death, and What Comes After (Part II)

6.

 

Hollis Maryanne Potter was born the 15th of June, 1982, in a small room of a flat in Muggle London.

It was the third apartment Lily had held since finding out she was pregnant. She kept to the parts of the city that the muggles considered dangerous, for she had little to fear of being mugged when her clothing was so extensively worked with notice-me-not charms, and the look of the neighborhoods was all the better to keep the magical world away.

Both of the other apartments had been equally inconspicuous. At the first, she had tired of the daily screaming matches between the neighbors that drifted in the through the windows to upset Harry. The second, she had become convinced that the old man living on the third floor was a squib, and that was too close to the Magical World for comfort. This apartment had its own problems, of course; almost everything had been broken beyond what a _reparo_ could mend, and if she were to so much think about leaving the door unlocked there would be idiot muggle teenagers trying to figure out why her door was so much harder to open than the others in the complex. But, by May it was far too late to move again.

Sirius and Remus made sure to visit as often as they could. They had much less time on their hands, with Sirius back at work for the ministry, but even so, one or the other was over nearly every day. The only other person she remained in contact with was Healer Engelhart, and no matter how dear the Healer held Lily, she was hardly a social creature.

When Hollis was born, it was just Lily and Engelhart in the room. Sirius had been called away on a training mission—as he had claimed when Harry was born, though he had come home smelling of a pub—and Remus had been pacing so frantically that Lily had snapped at him to take a walk. She did not care he had made it no farther than the front room, frankly; her attention was on more pressing matters.

The moment Hollis was in her arms Remus was back through the door, Harry in tow. The boy was drowsy-eyed and altogether quite confused—it was the middle of the night, Lily realized, when she looked at the clock. He clung to Remus’ leg and buried his face in the soft cloth of his trousers. Hollis, on the other hand, cried and cried in a wail that made Healer Engelhart cringe. Lily had never heard anything so beautiful.

Of course, within two weeks the joy of a newborn had not _entirely_ worn off, but it had certainly faded some. There was little sleep to be had with two children in the house. Harry grew endlessly fascinated by his baby sister. If she were in her mother’ or uncles’ arms, he was perched a few feet away, staring at her while she stared back.

While he was for the most part, if possible, a calmer child than he had been before, he was also much more fretful than any of them when Hollis’ mood turned sour. The moment she started crying he was on his little feet, even if he hung back a ways, minding the instinct that he could do no good getting underfoot to the adults. He reminded Lily so much of how James had been, when he had been born. Neither parent had been ready, though it was said no one ever was. James had always fretted when something went wrong. He was the first to swoop Harry in the air and could nearly always have the baby boy giggling in a heartbeat. But in the rare moments that Harry had been upset, James took on the face of a lost puppy—or, if Harry was in his arms, a deer stuck in the headlights. Though James wasn’t there to freeze up over Hollis, Harry and Sirius were just as hopeless around the upset child, leaving Lily and Remus to most of the difficult moments.

As for Remus—he swore that he had been fired again, but Lily suspected he had quit his job to look after Harry. Normally she would have told him off. Remus spent far too much time putting others before himself, and while that balanced nicely with Sirius’ much less altruistic personality, in Lily’s opinion the skinny, shabby man could do with a bit more self-interest. She could not protest, however, when she was far too tired from waking up at odd hours to meet Hollis’ crying demands to deal with a two-year-old. Remus took Harry out when she was especially tired, and she did appreciate that. If Hollis would allow it, she sat down for a nap—or tea, at least.

One such interlude, she had just put the cream in her mug when there came a knock on the door. She looked at the clock. It had only been fifteen minutes since the pair had left, but perhaps her son had forgotten to use the restroom. It wouldn’t be the first time. She stood up slowly and meandered to the door, opening it lazily.

The man outside her door was not hand-in-hand with her son, and while he was wearing a patched coat, he was not Remus. Not in the slightest. Lily reached for her wand, only to realize she was not wearing it. She cursed her negligence. Even she had gotten soft, in the wake of Voldemort’s disappearance.

“How did you find this place?” she demanded, but Severus Snape spoke right over her.

 

 

The fire flared, and out of it stepped Lily Potter.

She had not brought her son. Dumbledore had requested her to; he had only seen the boy briefly, on his unhappy visit to the house at Godric’s Hollow in the wake of the disaster. He had not been able to make sense of the scene, which was odd, for him. Normally he could recognize magics at work. Yet from the wreckage of the house, a piece seemed to be missing, a piece which inhibited his understanding of that night.

So when he had requested Lily Potter visit him, he had requested she bring her son. He wanted to examine the scar running jagged across his forehead, likened by some to a lightning bolt. Perhaps, he thought, an understanding of the scar would engender an understanding of what had rent the Dark Lord Voldemort from his body.

She had not brought her son.

“Lily,” he said, standing from his desk and opening his arms in greeting. “I am glad to see you.”

“Professor,” she responded. Her eyes darted around the circular office, taking in the instruments and portraits that kept it full.

“Please, have a seat.” Dumbledore conjured her a red armchair on the other side of his desk. She settled into it, apparently oblivious to the way she let her eyes slip closed as she sunk into the cushions.

The young woman looked exhausted, frankly. There were dark circles under her eyes, she must have lost at least a stone since he had last seen her, and the red hair she had pulled into a side braid was lackluster and in need of a strong health potion. Her eyes, when she opened them, were pink around the rims, a startling contrast with the green of the irises. Her son, Harry, had inherited her eyes, if his memory served him well. He wondered if the boy would look so distrustful when he came to Hogwarts.

“Well? What is it?” Her voice was rough as her appearance; Dumbledore wondered if she had been sick recently. It had been over a month since she had snapped out of her waking coma, and surely she had been compromised, health-wise, following that.

“I never properly offered you my condolences following James’ death,” he said, keeping his voice soft. “He was taken from you far too soon.”

He watched the wave of pain pass tension through her body, shoulders briefly rising before she wiped herself of expression. It was a new façade for her, blankness; as a student, and even following her entrance to the Order, she had always been open and loud in expressing her emotions.

“Yes,” she said simply. Her eyes wandered away from him, looking past, out the windows beyond his desk. “And Harry will not have a father.”

“Although I imagine he will have plenty of love at home, with Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin?”

The four men—James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew—had been inseparable in their youth, fashioning themselves a brotherhood and naming this group the Marauders, the worst-kept secret of their time. Upon graduation, it seemed, they had remained close, and when the young Potters had gone into hiding they had chosen Sirius as their secret keeper. That was, at least, what they had told Dumbledore—and he had lauded it as an excellent arrangement: Sirius had always been fiercely loyal to his adoptive brother, despite his speculative upbringing.

Or, that is what he had thought, before being called to the scene at Godric’s Hollow.

He was not fond of being caught without full disclosure.

“No thanks to you,” Lily said. Her voice was calm, no trace of emotion, but her eyes were narrowed and she shifted marginally forward. She did not use the armrests, but kept tucked into herself, as though protecting her body.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said softly. He thought back to his conclusion, when he had written her for a meeting, that he was not in the wrong for failing to assist her crusade of the liberation of Sirius from Azkaban. He had been in France at first, then Germany, assisting in the coordination of forces rooting out local Death Eater offshoots, and returned to England only to meet spies and attend trials. “I am sorry Sirius had to suffer like that, Lily. I really am. And now that I am back, I was hoping you might explain to me what happened?”

She scoffed, reaching to flip her braid back. “What happened was that you told the aurors that Sirius had been our secret keeper, and that he must have betrayed us.”

“That was what I thought to be true.”

“Well, it wasn’t. We had feared that—it had recently become official, that Remus and Sirius were seeing each other—”

Dumbledore blinked at that, but at his age keeping his expression schooled the way she had to fight to was easy. Remus and Sirius? He did remember them being discussed in the conference room, a running bet between McGonagall and Slughorn. But his attentions, in those days, were less for the cares of students and more for their potential and character.

“—and we were afraid that Voldemort would try to use Remus to get to Sirius.”

“I see,” said Dumbledore. “And so you switched to Peter.”

“Yes. On Halloween.”

Dumbledore studied the back of his hands, rested on the desk before him. They were old hands, now, and the protruding veins never ceased to bring him back to earth. He would expect anger at that Potters, for taking the matter into their own discretion, failing the plans he had laid. But Lily did not deserve to bear blame; her husband was dead, and she had been in such a shock it could have very well left her in the Janus Thickley ward of St. Mungo’s for good, as he understood it. Likewise, Remus and Sirius could not be blamed for their love, any more than Lily and James’ love and the birth of Harry could be blamed for James’ death.

“And so Mr. Pettigrew was the mole all along,” he summarized. “I am sorry that a friend could betray you like that, especially one so dear as Peter.”

“That’s how people are, isn’t it? You put your trust in them and they fail your expectations. That’s how it always is.”

“That one so young should feel as such…”

He remembered his sister’s death, and feeling much as young Lily did now. People had been nothing more than a disappointment to him—himself most of all. It had taken him much longer than three months to get over his paralyzing grief, though perhaps his depression had been less physically apparent than Lily’s. Still, he imagined he could understand her cynicism: even after all these years, he was occasionally crippled with self-doubt.

Old as he was, he was not disposed to accept just anything unlikely at the drop of the wand. Perhaps that had led him to ignoring the letters he had gotten from the young mother; he had only scanned them well enough to realize she offered no insight into the mystery of Voldemort’s apparent demise and had set them aside, brushing past all other matters to devote focus to the problems at hand.

The problem at hand now was a woman who had decided she could not trust him. She could not trust him, with good reason.

“What did you call me for, really?” Lily asked. “It wasn’t to give your condolences, or you could have simply come by yourself, or owled.”

“I did consider visiting,” Dumbledore admitted. “However, it would seem your current abode is being rather carefully warded.”

“Rather carefully?” She laughed: a joyless sound. “If it’s kept under your radar, than I say I’m doing more than keeping it ‘rather carefully’ warded, Professor.”

“Under my radar?”

“A muggle expression.”

He wondered how much that could tell him, whether it was something remembered from her childhood or a more recent turn of events that brought the turn of phrase so easily to her tongue.

“Well, I am certainly impressed, Miss Potter. And glad that you, and your son, are keeping safe. That is, as it happens, the matter I wish to discuss with you.”

“My son?”

“Yes. You haven’t brought him with you, I’ve noticed.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t bring him to places with people I don’t trust.”

He closed his eyes, a quiet sigh slipping through his lips. “Of course. Although, I can promise you, solemnly vow, that I would never hurt young Harry.”

“Perhaps not intentionally.” Opening his eyes found hers staring right back, her head tilted slightly to one side. “But we have come to realize you are good at hurting people indirectly.”

“Oh?”

He would not deny that. Yet he was unsure how she had concluded he did so more than others, when in fact dealing such damage was an unavoidable part of being human. One might buy the last copy of a book at the store, only for another customer to come in a few minutes later and languish that the one book they needed was gone. Or he might send an Order member on a mission, only to receive information shortly after that they were walking into a trap. There were certain unavoidable damages one dealt on the world, living.

“Yes,” she said. She seemed relatively eager to explain his faults, which clashed with Dumbledore’s idea of Lily Potter: caring, loving. “You move people like pawns, and then, when they fall, have another to move into their place.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” he said, voice even softer.

“I’m sure you do,” she said. “The Order could have done plenty without having so many of us killed, couldn’t it have, Professor? Had we not so blindly been following your lead.”

“You think I deliberately put people in harm’s way.”

It was a harsh accusation, and her words were cutting indeed. Dumbledore had always valued his leadership to the Order, to try and know it’s members personally, to try not to ask too much of them. Of course members had died: it was war. It was unfortunate reality, that when you had seen so many come and go as he had, Death was part and parcel to life.

But she was too young to know that. The Potters had only graduated Hogwarts three years ago, and had been both so young at the time, young and eager to join the Order. He had allowed them, dependent on their beginning training for their professions of choice. James had chosen the Auror Academy; Lily, St. Mungo’s. He had done his best to give them something of a future beyond the war, as so many young people were inclined to get caught up in the present and think of nothing else. He had done his best for them, to try and make sure they had lives outside of the fight.

And she claimed he did nothing but move them as pawns?

“No,” she said.

He lifted an eyebrow.

“I don’t think you deliberately put anyone in harm’s way. You spend too much time avoiding direct conflict for that.”

He dipped his head. Direct conflicts, he thought, were best left to the aurors trained for battle. The Order had the best of intentions at heart, and they were all fine wizarding folk, but they were a rabble, not an army. He may have accepted Death, but it did not mean he would forgive the blood on his hands if he put the people trusting him on the frontlines. Those who were lost in the smaller missions were painful enough to accept.

“We think you are a blind man, a blind man who couldn’t see when he was making the same mistakes over and over again, who didn’t feel enough guilt to learn from his mistakes and fix his tactics.”

“The thing about declaring someone to be blind to reality,” he told her, “Is that they have no way to reasonably defend themselves.”

The hands in her lap came up to cross her chest. Her lip curled. “And that’s the thing,” she said. “Your automatic response is to defend yourself, without even thinking back on your actions.”

He dipped his head again, looking back at his hands. There was a mole on his index knuckle that he had a way of forgetting about until he happened to glance down, the sort of small, unimportant information that one puts out of their mind to make way for less trivial matters. In the war, he had always pushed the Order forward, not leaving time to mourn the fallen, to lose momentum. That was the way it had to be.

“And so,” the woman was saying, surely taking his silence as a victory for her part, although he couldn’t imagine it a victory she wished. “I believe you have something of mine.”

He knew instantly what she referred to, as that, in fact, was the real reason he had called her to Hogwarts: the invisibility cloak that James Potter had lent Dumbledore when they settled on Sirius as secret keeper. Of course he had intended discussion on the matter of Harry’s future. He could see, however, that such a conversation was at this point futile. It was best left for when her anger with him had subsided, an end to which the return of the cloak would hopefully propel.

But he hesitated.

There had been good reason for him to keep it, after all. By now he was all but convinced: this was the Invisibility Cloak of legend, the cloak which had belonged to Death itself, one of the Deathly Hallows.

The goal of uniting the three Hallows—the Invisibility Cloak in his hands, the Elder Wand on his desk, and the fabled Resurrection Stone—had died with his love of Gellert Grindelwald, all those years ago. Still, when James had shown him the cloak, he had to know. He could not leave the matter unchecked. Even now, now that he knew the cloak a Hallow but that the temptation had cost James his life, he was hesitant to give it back. He forced himself to draw it from his desk and hand it to the woman, and she took it with shaking arms.

“I am sorry, my dear,” he said as the young woman stared at the shimmering cloth in her hands. She stroked it slowly. “The thought that I was the one to deny you of this one protection… I wish it could be undone.”

“So do I,” Lily said, voice just as soft. But then the trance seemed to leave her, and she stood from the chair. “But the past is unchangeable. What is done cannot be unwritten.”

She turned to walk back to the fire.

“Miss Potter,” Dumbledore called. “Please, sit back down. I would like to discuss your defenses. Voldemort—”

“Is not dead,” she said, looking back over her shoulder. “Of course he isn’t. Anyone who believes otherwise is a fool. But my defenses are none of your concern, not any more.”

“Lily,” he implored. “I want to help keep you safe! And help your son, whose childhood will surely be altered by this tragedy.”

“Too bad,” Lily said. She turned back around, holding out the cloak. “See, Professor, that’s the thing: you say that you are sorry. Sorry. You say that you are sorry you took away our last line of defense, you are sorry James died—but even now, you are doing the same thing you always did with the Order. Pushing forward like you have made no errors, like you have a _right_ to declare what happens next with no reflection on what happened last. And not all of us are so naïve, Professor, to follow you blindly. We are not going to take orders from you any longer. Not now. Not when Voldemort returns.”

“We?” Dumbledore echoes. “Who makes up ‘we’?”

“Everyone who has seen your failure,” she said. Her hand dipped into the pocket of her pants, and came out with a handful of floo powder. Strange, considering that he had a bowl on his mantle, as most wizards do. Surely her distrust did not run so deep she would not even use his floo powder?

“I am sorry, Lily,” he said again, as she stepped back. “For what it’s worth.”

Her lip curled, and she dropped the powder. She did not state her destination.

Dumbledore did not sit back down, but crossed the room to where Fawkes, the phoenix, stood on his stand. The bird had been reborn recently, while he was out of the country. It was only suiting; the end of an era. He ran a finger down the creature’s neck, and it chirped at him, leaning in to his touch.

He could only hope that Lily Potter could find it in her heart to forgive him, before her son was old enough to be affected by such poisonous anger.

 

 

“Lily, I swear,” he said frantically, “I know Dumbledore must have said—but hear me out! I didn’t know—”

“Severus,” she said sharply. “I don’t know what you are talking about and you need to leave. Now.”

“I didn’t know it meant you—I swear—”

That caught Lily’s attention. There were only so many things he could be referring to, in such a frenzy.

Making up her mind, she reached out and grabbed the man by the collar of his oversized jacket, pulling him inside and hastily slamming the door shut. It was odd—like a scene straight out of her—their—childhood. The particular situation had the potential for far greater brevity than any of their childish drama would have, however, and there was not the resolute belief that she would be able to forgive Severus when he said his piece. Not anymore.

She crossed her arms across her chest and faced him. “Explain.”

“I had just been—just been doing what I was supposed to—I didn’t even know you were pregnant for months, months—and I begged Dumbledore—and I begged _him_ —”

“You begged Dumbledore.” Though his words were too fragmented to make much sense of, there was a sinking in her gut, the echoes of the waves in her ears. Funny, she thought, how when you’ve realized so many people closest to you had betrayed your trust it is still possible to feel the sting of hurt from someone who you have no reason to trust anyways. Someone like Severus.

“I didn’t think the Dark Lord would listen,” he said, “Even though I begged him not to—so I sent Dumbledore a message. I told him that he thought it was you, and that you were in danger—I begged Dumbledore to protect you—”

Though the words were falling on her ears, Lily was hearing none of them, only the steady roar of a tumultuous ocean. Severus’ meaning could always be found between the lines, if you listened close enough. Lily wished she hadn’t listened. Wished she had turned him away at the door, taken Hollis and left.

“You told him,” she whispered hollowly. “You told Voldemort the prophecy.”

The truth, it seemed, was dawning on both of them. For a moment Severus looked confused, then mortified, his pale skin flushing with dark red spots. “I didn’t know!” he insisted. “Lily—I would have never—never—put you in his path, I swear! I begged—”

“You told Voldemort the prophecy,” she repeated, and looked up at him, her nostrils flaring and lips twisting into a snarl. “You told Voldemort! And now James is dead. _Dead,_ Severus! And what about him, what about Harry? Not a word of begging for either of them, I imagine, because _no_ , Severus Snape doesn’t give a damn if it doesn’t cross his mind. You fucking—”

“Dumbledore didn’t tell you,” Severus said. Of course he did. Because even when it was Lily suffering his single-minded idiocy, he couldn’t focus on anything but what he was directly involved with.

“That fucking asshole told me many things,” she said, “But he failed to mention you. Funny, maybe he at least had the decency to be ashamed of making a deal with someone of your degeneracy. I should have saved my scorn for you, not him!”

Severus flinched, and perhaps if Lily had not been in such a state she would not have said such things. But she was angry—livid—the cabinets were starting to shake and the light bulb’s glow had shrunk back in fright, and Severus too seemed to cower.

“My son,” Lily carried on, “No longer has a father. Because of you! What are you going to do about that, you bastard? He’s somehow the most famous boy alive, and doesn’t even understand why—can you even imagine how horrible it will be? Can you sympathize with the pain of someone outside of your own skull?”

“Lily, I tried to—”

“I don’t give a shit what you tried to do, Severus,” she snarled. “Dumbledore _tried_ to protect us, and look what happened. He would have let me ignorant of this, too, wouldn’t he? So you could come slinking back in, the battered victim?”

The tea she had left on the table burst, sending shards of glass and milky liquid in every direction. Severus spun around, wand out, immobilizing it in an instant. The silence seemed to descend like an iron wall between them, and time seemed to stretch out until, from what seemed like an impossible distance, Hollis cried out.

“Get out,” Lily said quietly.

“Lily, I—”

Her jaw worked as she pressed her teeth together. Hollis’ wailing made the apartment’s stifling air seem filled with sudden urgency. “Get. Out.”

A knock came on the door, and Severus whirled about again, wand at shoulder level. Lily was standing at the door, so she merely turned to slam it open, revealing Remus crouched down over the two-year-old Harry, who was trying to hold back tears. “Harry tripped and hurt his knee, can you—” the man started to say, before he looked up and saw Severus standing behind her.

Lily turned without a word and swept by the intruder, beckoned by Hollis’ wails. Severus seemed as immobilized as the tea hanging in the air behind him, staring at Harry, who stared right back, though his bright eyes were watering and his knee red with blood. For a moment, Severus seemed to act unconsciously, lowering his wand to point towards the boy, but Remus, seeing that, stepped between them, drawing his own wand and facing the man without a word.

At last Severus seemed to return to himself, blinking, and his eyes came up to meet Remus’. His face pulled back into an awful grimace, and he tucked his wand away as he swept out of the apartment, oversized coat billowing out behind him as he made for the stairs.

In the kitchen, the fragments of the glass fell to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your support! I’m glad to see there are so many of you still reading new works in the fandom.
> 
> I was going to post chapters on Mondays, but I think Sundays work a little better for me, so here this is. As you can see, chapter length is a little bit variable, due to the way this story is formatted. The “chapter” after this is quite long.
> 
> If you have any comments or questions, feel free to ask! Reviews are the fuel that keeps editing enjoyable. (And trust me, there’s editing going on, even if you still see typos here and there. My first draft had Lily losing three stone instead of one. Oh dear.) You can also ask to my tumblr—username thenoacat—or review on FF.net, where this story is being cross-posted.
> 
> One final note - the name Hollis, the nickname for which is Holly, I definitely got from the story the Never Ending Road. Once it was in my head, it stuck. It is a very long, well-written, and still updating story, and I encourage all of you to read it if you are not already!
> 
> Thank you!


	3. An Old Road, Part I

 

Far from the troubles of Magical Britain, a dusty road wound through the French countryside. At one end, it merged with the main street passing through a small village; far in in the distance, like a spot of shadow on the horizon, sat the dark manor house. But it was far away.

Two children were walking down the road. One was tall and the other short, but both had dark hair and tan skin lingering with the glow of summer. It was autumn, as late as October, and even that month was nearly spent. But the pair of children were, as children often are, in a different place, and a different time.

The shorter child, a girl with pigtail braids tied with blue ribbon bows, was thinking of a house in London with a warm fire in the kitchen and laughter running up and down the stairs. The taller, a boy whose orderly appearance was threatened by wind and rainclouds hanging low on the horizon, was back at the school, earlier that day, in the yard where the children played after lunch time. They were both focused on the other, in a roundabout way, but neither was to admit it for a long, long time.

They had always spoken together in English, ever since he was five and she was three and they had moved to the country and started to romp the village with the local children. It was their way of keeping secrets. There were larger secrets to keep than what they might be having for dinner or when they might be visiting their uncles across the channel, but the pair of children knew better than to speak of magic in front of any muggle. Their mother had utterly forbade them from so much as caring too intensely for a card trick or muggle illusion. So they spoke of silly things, when they felt like annoying the others. Or they had, before.

Holly Jeannot, as she was called in school, had recently started her first year of muggle education. Before their mother Lily had taken her to the day care in town, but she had turned six over the summer, and never had any child been so excited. Her brother went to the school already, after all, and she was loath to accept that he could possibly have anything she did not. There had always been an unspoken rule in their little family: Hollis would never be lonely. Until they had left the apartment in Troyes and her brother had started school, they had always been together. The logical solution to their separation was, of course, to go to school herself, but no matter how she begged she would not attend until she was six.

Her excitement for school had died within a week of starting classes. Her brother, who all the village kids called James, was the type of student who sat in the back of the room and no one really knew. If they knew him for anything, it was because he was ‘the British kid’. That was among his year mates: no one else cared.

Holly, on the other hand, was the type of child who everyone knew. She, too, was known as ‘the British kid’—at least to those outside of her year. Classes were divided, and she could not go abandoning her friends in the recess hour, so she only saw her brother twice a day: as they walked to the village to wait for the bus, and as they walked home.

But they still spoke in English together, especially when there was something important to say.

“Who was it?” the boy asked, for the fifth time if not the hundredth. He liked to think he was Harry again when he spoke English, not ‘ _James Jeannot’._ That was all a game, and he did not treat his sister like a game. She was more important than that.

“I told you, Harry,” Holly insisted. “No one. I broke it myself.”

“El said it was Claude,” Harry said.

“Claude who?”

“Claude the red-head. You know, the one from my class. A townie.”

She did not say anything to that, which meant he was right. Harry sighed. He’d known some of the boys to pick on the younger kids, but why his sister, of all people? He supposed it was because she was a brat, but he did not like them thinking of her that way. She was a brat, but she was also his sister.

And they certainly should not have broken her toy.

It was a stupid thing, really; plastic rubbish Sirius had sent from London. But Holly had clung to her horse like a baby to a blanket. The first day of school she had thrown a tantrum when the teacher made her leave it in the cloakroom. The second day she stubbornly insisted that she hadn’t cried at all, but held onto the horse the whole way home. And now someone had broken it. Harry wouldn’t even have heard, but when they rode the bus from town to the village one of her friends had tried to comfort her, despite Holly’s attempts at a brave face.

“He’s a git,” Harry proclaimed finally.

“Who?”

“Claude. And he shouldn’t have broken it. It was wrong.”

“Harry,” Holly said, “Just leave it alone, won’t you?”

But Harry would not leave it alone. “The teacher didn’t do anything?”

“Harry—”

“Then I’ll do something.”

“Harry!”

“What?” he said. “He broke your toy, Hollis. That’s _wrong.”_

“And—and beating people up is mean!” Now she did look close to tears.

“I didn’t say I was going to beat him up,” Harry muttered, though he considered the idea now. It was an entirely ridiculous image. Claude was a good four inches taller than him, anyways. Sure, Harry was fast, fast enough to get away from the other boys when they started a tussle in the yard, but he’d never hit someone and probably couldn’t land a punch if he tried. Unless he used magic, like in one of those shows on the telly that pretended you could do anything with magic you could imagine. That was just stupid. And mum would kill him.

“Harry, you can’t!” Holly whined.

“I’m not an idiot, Hols,” he said. He sighed again and put his arm around her shoulder for a minute, which made it difficult to walk but seemed to get the six-year-old to pay attention. “He’d—he’d wipe the floor with me.”

“Ye—yeah,” said Holly, wiping her nose. Harry rolled his eyes. Only his sister could go from crying to insulting that quickly. “You’re a wimp.”

“You can’t say things like that,” he said, letting go.

“Why not?”

“’cause I’m your older brother, that’s why,” he said. “And I’m _Harry Potter_ , right?”

That made his sister giggle, and he couldn’t help but join in.

They were nearly to the mansion by then, so the children raced down the dirt road, Harry running just slow enough that his sister wouldn’t notice. He liked the way he could feel them pass through the mansion wards. It was like slipping into a bubble, and on the other side the grounds were alive with magic. The pixies living in the gates blew spit bubble as they ran through. To the muggles, had they not always found themselves remembering the list of things they were avoiding whenever they considered approaching the manor, the grounds would have been in appalling condition. To the children, it was wonderland.

Their mum’s car sat outside the gate on the last bit of road, but past the stone arch the grass reached Harry’s knees in the shortest spot. It was filled with tangles of wildflowers, and creatures both magical and not. Uncle Sirius preferred them keep it that way. He said his parents would have hated it, which made him grin the way only spiting his parents did. Harry liked it because, when he looked out from his window on the second floor onto the wild grass and crumbling walls, it was like a scene straight out of one of his books.

It was also the one place that Lily let them truly run free. There was no pretending magic did not exist inside these walls, and no danger of a stranger or bad wizard coming to take them away. So they could run around until sunset, if it were warm enough and she were in a pleasant enough mood.

Today, however, Lily Potter was standing out on the porch. Harry slowed down as she came into view, though Holly surged forward faster than before. “Mum!” she shouted. “I beat Harry!”

“Yes, Hollis,” Lily agreed. “Look how fast you are!”

The girl tossed her school bag up on the porch and circled around back towards her brother, arms stretched out like an airplane. He rolled his eyes, but followed closely after his sister when she headed back towards the house.

“Hi, mum,” he said.

“Hello, Harry,” Lily replied. “How was your day at school?”

Two years earlier, on Halloween as well, Lily had greeted Harry much the same way.

 

 

 

She took him inside, and they had gotten dressed up in robes Sirius had sent from London. They had spoken that week about the event—a gala, she called it, at the Ministry of Magic. Harry didn’t know what was so special about that, but he had been excited to go into the magical world in Britain. It had been years since they moved to France, and he had only seen the wizards of London in short glimpses over holidays spent at his Uncles’ home. Getting ready, however, proved to take far longer than he would like.

“Harry,” his mum said sharply, giving the six-year-old boy’s hair a tug. “Pay attention.”

“Powerful wizards,” he said, his voice flat with boredom.

“Yes,” she said. “To them, you are the Boy Who Lived. Which means…”

“I have to be on my best behavior,” he recited, flipping the page of his book. “Will there be other kids there?”

“Most likely, but no one you should spend too much time with. I want you to stay at my side at all times. There will an apparation ward up, no doubt, but I can still keep you safe.”

“But it’s a _party_ ,” Harry pointed out. Sometimes, he had learned, you had to point out things like that to adults. “Parties are supposed to be fun. Like Jean’s birthday party. That would have been fun.”

“Jean’s father is a bigoted old ass.”

“What’s ‘bigoted’?”

She sighed. “Well, I’ve told you, some wizards are mean to others just for being muggleborn.”

“Yeah, but Jean’s a muggle. Not a wizard.”

“Well, some muggles are mean to others just for having different skin, or for being from a different place, or loving someone… different.”

“Like Siri’ and Rem’?”

“Yes.” She brushed his hair in silence for a minute, and Harry got reabsorbed with his book. Both minds caught up in their own worlds, they started when the fire suddenly glowed brighter.

Sirius and Remus stepped out of the floo.

“You’re late,” said Lily sharply, putting away her wand, which had somehow appeared in her hand alongside the brush.

Harry jumped off the stool and ran to give Sirius a hug. The tall man picked him up and spun him in the air, as effortlessly as he had when Harry was a baby. “Hey-a, Harry! Did you shrink?” Harry giggled as he was swept back down into his Uncle’s arms, and Sirius began to tickle him. “You look like a fluffed penguin, little man!”

“Sirius!” Lily admonished. “You’ll mess him all up.”

“Oh, lighten up, Lily,” Sirius said. He set Harry down, ruffling the hair she had styled so carefully into a haphazard poof. “Isn’t he supposed to look a mess? James always did.”

Lily sighed, but she set down the brush and crossed the room to fix Sirius’ tie. “Honestly, you’d think between the two of you one would know how to do a tie properly.”

“Well, of course we do,” said Sirius. “It’s just we’re so much better and getting them undone…”

She punched his shoulder—really punched, hard enough to bruise—and turned to Remus. “Hollis is sleeping already, thank Merlin,” she told him, slipping the ring off her middle finger and passing it to the smaller man. “I gave her a dose of sleeping potion, but this is charmed for if she wakes up. She’s been climbing out of bed and tearing the paper off the walls. Honestly, I think she’s more like James than any of us. A right terror.”

“Well, she shouldn’t be a problem if she’s asleep, then,” Remus replied. “It’s only when James was awake that you had to worry.” He looked down at Harry and winked. “And how’s the Boy Who Lived feeling this evening?”

Harry rolled his eyes, a habit he’d picked up from reading. The Boy Who Lived was, between the four of them, a ridiculous story for little kids. And he wasn’t a little kid. He was already Six Years Old, after all. “Aren’t you coming to the party, Remy?” he asked.

“No. I don’t think they’d like me much there—I’m not famous enough, you see. And I don’t look good in funny dress robes, anyways.”

“Remus doesn’t know what he’s talking about, kid,” Sirius said. “He’s absolutely delicious if you get him in good robes. Of course, I like you better _out_ of your robes, love—”

“ _Sirius_!” Lily said again. Sirius laughed. “It’s not funny, Mister. Harry’s only six. He doesn’t need to listen to that sort of crap.”

“At least I’m not the one swearing.”

“For once!”

Remus cut in gently, as he usually did when Lily and Sirius started arguing. “Come on, you two, aren’t you supposed to be at a fancy party sometime this evening? And Lily—I don’t think I’ve seen you dressed up so nicely since your wedding.”

“Yeah, if James were here…” said Sirius, and suddenly he swept her off her feet the way he’d picked up Harry. Lily shrieked as he spun her around, making her dress flutter in the air. Harry laughed: his mum’s face was almost as red as the hair that fluttered at her cheeks. “He would have done that,” Sirius finished, satisfied. He put her back down.

This time, Lily was too embarrassed to punch him.

 

 

 

She pulled out her wand and attempted to summon her cloak across the room, but it swirled dizzily through the air and landed halfway. It wasn’t her usual navy cloak, the one she wore to the hospital; this one was a soft black leather lined with grey fur. She swung it around her shoulders and picked up the matching one Harry had left on the stool, fastening it under her son’s chin.

Sirius was giving Remus a hug, so they had to be about ready to leave. Harry wondered if he could get away with bringing his book. He doubted it.

“Alright, then,” Lily said, taking Harry by the shoulder and guiding him to the fireplace. She kept her firm grip as they stepped into the flames, which tickled his ankles but were not hot at all. “Remus, send a message if anything happens. Sirius—hurry up.”

 

 

Harry hated travelling by floo. He preferred it to apparition, which was likely to upheave his most recent meal, and portkeys had a way of mixing up his limbs to odd angles, but with the floo he usually ended up covered in soot. Crossing between the continent and England was a particular trouble, as the speed gathered usually threw him to the next fireplace with enough force to send him flying out to the room beyond. On the rare occasion they took the floo anywhere, someone usually had to go ahead to catch him.

This time, however, Lily kept her hand tight on his shoulder, so they landed upright together. His ears still rang with the twisting pressure of travel, and sudden boom of the voice announcing them made his head ring with the words—HARRY POTTER, THE BOY WHO LIVED, WITH MOTHER, LILY POTTER!

The room Lily firmly guided Harry out of the fireplace into was the largest the boy had ever seen. He knew they had come to the Ministry of Magic in London, and of course that meant grand, but here were floors of marble and a ceiling so high he wasn’t sure it was there at all. The floor was lined with fireplaces, flashing green as magic folk stepped through, and the announcing voices echoed against the stone.

Harry was so busy craning his neck to peer into the arched windows of offices above at first that he did not notice the way so many witches and wizards turned to stare, but when he finally looked down, there seemed to be eyes from every direction. His mum seemed to float forward, in a sphere of oblivion that did not extend to her son. Harry had once heard her telling Remus how much she hated the way travelling in London meant subjecting herself to strangers’ attentions. He hadn’t known why it made her so angry, but now he began to understand, and wondered at how she could look so at ease.

Sirius caught up to them scarcely a moment before a pudgy man in orange robes embroidered with pumpkins came forward. “Lily! Harry!” the stranger bellowed. Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen the man before, but then again, most people could recognize him with his hair all messed up like his dad’s. The glasses helped too, Remus always said. He didn’t get out much, but when he did, all fussed over to look like what his mum said was the ‘Harry Potter’ look, there were always people who recognized him.

“Director Fudge,” Lily said coolly. “A pleasure to see you again.”

“The pleasure is mine, my dear!” the man boomed, looking around as though expecting the crowds to laugh with him. Few did, but they seemed to relax, turning back to their conversations. Harry, studying the embroidery on the man’s cloak, failed to notice the way several groups seemed to drift closer.

“And why, Harry,” the man said, looking down at him. “Don’t you look like your father! We’ve heard that, of course, but it’s been years since we’ve seen you here. You don’t even remember me, do you?” He looked hopeful. “No? I’m Cornelius Fudge, head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Do you know what that means?”

“You run the world,” Harry answered solemnly, with as much volume as he could muster. Fudge started, then laughed and clapped a beefy hand on Harry’s open shoulder. Lily’s grip on the other side tightened.

“Not quite, my dear boy! But that’s a good one—run the world—Have you seen Dumbledore yet, Lily? He said he was looking forward to seeing you.”

“We just arrived, Fudge,” she reminded dryly. “But I’m sure we’ll run into him, if he’s looking for us.”

“Of course, of course. Couldn’t avoid the man if there was one of those muggle thingies—what do they call them? Force-walls?”

“Force field,” Harry corrected. In matters of Muggle comics, he was much more confident. “And those don’t actually exist.”

“Right,” said Fudge, conceding in the way that adults do that means they really don’t concede at all. Harry was dismayed; sci-fi was already his favorite genre, but it was clear the man had no more than a passing fancy. “Force fields. Well, not that anyone would want to avoid Dumbledore. Charming man—Barty!”

As Fudge turned to call out to someone, Lily steered Harry past his turned back, reaching out to pull Sirius along with them. “—nasty old—Lily! Let me—”

“Not now, Sirius,” she hissed. “Now—Minerva! Delightful to see you again.”

The woman she called out to, and older witch dressed in tartan robes with greying hair pulled into a tight knot on top her head, turned away from the wait staff offering drinks. Her face was traced with sharp creases, but despite her fierce look she reminded Harry so much of one of the grandmothers in the village he could not help but feel more comfortable in her scrutiny than in Fudge’s bizarre familiarity. Her face seemed to lighten as she caught sight of Lily approaching, and she swept forward to embrace her.

“Lily, dear,” she said. “It’s been too long.”

She looked next to Sirius. “And Mr. Black. Still causing trouble, I hear.”

“Of course,” Sirius said, with a regal bow that made him look halfway respectful. For Sirius, that was a first.

“And Mr. Lupin is still keeping you in order, of course,” she added dryly, “Or Lily would be marching into Azkaban every other day to save your hide.”

Lily laughed. Harry, on the other hand was confused: generally Sirius and Azkaban mentioned in the same breath were not laughing matters. But the woman peered down at him.

“Mr. Potter,” she said gravely. “Looking just like your father, of course. When I have you, I won’t be tolerating any such nonsense from you, I’ll have you know. Mr. Black and your father were trouble enough for one lifetime!”

“Harry, this is Professor McGonagall,” Lily explained. “She teaches transfiguration up at Hogwarts.”

He blinked. It was strange to think of this woman teaching his parents when they were in school, having just started it himself, but then again it was always strange for him to try and imagine his mum as a kid. Everyone always called her young, but to Harry she was always his mum, and that made her eternally an adult.

“Hello,” he said, when he realized it was expected. “I’m Harry.”

“Yes,” the woman said, and for a moment she looked like she was going to smile. Instead she looked back up at Lily. “Albus is looking for you.”

“He can go stuff himself,” said Sirius, earning a punch on the arm. But Lily didn’t disagree. Harry didn’t know who Dumbledore was, either, but he knew she had used those very words more times than his Uncle.

“I have no desire to see him at all, Minnie,” she said. “You can tell him that. Maybe he’ll listen to you”

“I highly doubt it. But Lily, don’t you think it’s time to forgive him?”

Lily sighed, then looked down at Harry and leaned in, quieting her voice before voicing her next thought.

Harry huffed. It wasn’t _fair._ His mum always _said_ she would tell Harry _anything_ , but then she kept her voice quiet for conversations like these, and it wasn’t his fault he was only half her height and couldn’t hear a thing! He stood on tiptoes, pushing against his mother’s hand to try and make out what they were saying.

But suddenly Sirius rounded Lily to take Harry’s other shoulder. “Come on Harry,” he said, smiling oddly. “Enough with these silly old grouches. Let’s find our spot at the dinner table! If there’s something these stupid events get right, it’s the food.”

“Sirius—” Lily cut short as she looked at the man. No, not at him, Harry realized; past him. Harry looked over his shoulder. There was one man that stood out in the crowd, an old wizard with a ridiculously long white beard, who somehow wore brighter orange robes than Fudge, who he was speaking to. When his mother let go of his shoulder, he looked up and realized he had missed yet another silent adult conversation. She looked down at him. “Stay with Sirius, love.”

Harry was pulled off before he could even say goodbye to the Professor. His mum always told him to properly say goodbye, but Sirius _had_ always been the rude one. He also walked fast enough that Harry had to run every few steps to keep up.

“Look, Harry,” the man said when they were a short ways down the hall. “Can you see the fountain?”

“What fountain?” Harry asked. He looked around, but all he could see were the strange robes the crowd was dressed in. Even in the magical international district tucked away in Hong Kong, which his mum had taken him to the year before, he had never seen such a mix of bright clothing. It was as dramatic as a scene of a muggle movie, where the Americans could be wearing just about anything as though it were perfectly natural.

“Here,” said Sirius, and he lifted Harry up onto his shoulders. There was a moment of confusion—Sirius’ normally lose hair was slicked back into a ponytail, and it got caught on Harry’s cloak—but when Harry was settled he could see all the way out across the hall. And there, across the hundreds of heads, was a golden fountain.

Among the many figures that formed it, one was a wizard whose wand seemed to be shooting out a stream of bats instead of water. They swooped close to the pointed hats and poofs of hair, and vanished into the shadows of the ceiling. Though he still could not see the actual ceiling, now that he was a bit closer he could see that about three levels up huge spider webs were draped from wall to wall. He could not imagine how large the spiders that made them would have to be. Between Harry and the fountain were several long tables, lit by rows of Jack-O-Lanterns lined along each. Alternating with the glowing pumpkins were baskets filled with pumpkin pastries.

It was, of course, Halloween, and while that meant little in the French countryside in Magical London no extravagance was spared. No extravagance except, that is, the spiders that had webbed the ceiling. Those, luckily, were nowhere in sight.

Sirius weaved his way through the crowd, pausing now and then to greet—or, more often, insult—several people. Harry, caught up in the excitement, grinned unabashedly waved at several. For some reason, that made many of the elderly witches and wizards giggle. It was strange, he thought, how most of them seemed to be the same age as Sirius’ mum. (He’d only met Mrs. Black once before she’d died, but that had been enough for Harry to determine she was a right old bat. Sirius always said worse.) But while he’d thought of Mrs. Black as old, he had never considered Sirius or Remus or even his mum as being particularly young. Now, when he looked down at his uncle Sirius looked youthful, compared to most of the witches and wizards here. To Harry he looked like a young pirate captain, or a prince—or a pirate prince—out of one of his books. The thought made Harry laugh, but then he had to duck as a bat swooped close to him.

“Careful, Harry!” Sirius said. “Hols would be terribly mad if we had any bat collisions.”

Harry giggled more. His sister was especially protective of animals, even though, at four, she couldn’t identify them properly by half. But then he tugged on Sirius’ ponytail. They weren’t supposed to talk about Holly: she was a secret.

Sirius swooped to the side in a dramatic response to the tug, and Harry had to cling to his head not to fall off. They straightened up when someone else called Sirius, and Harry had to dodge another bat. It seemed the closer they came to the fountain, the lower the creatures flew.

At last they reached the long tables, and Sirius walked along close enough to let Harry see the placards on the plates. Each was written in terribly spindly writing that would have made his schoolteacher yell. The tablecloths, Harry could see, seemed to be made out of black spider webs, dotted here and there with chocolate animals caught in them.

The baskets on the tables were filled with pumpkin pastries, as Harry had expected. Sirius leaned over to grab a small one, and passed it up to Harry when they had gotten upright again. “Don’t get crumbs in my hair, you little rascal,” he said. “Oh, look, Maram Grey is sitting here. Haven’t seen her since school. Silly girl, always got her charms mixed up. Oh, and there’s the Douglases. Haven’t seen Bert in a few month, I thought he’d gone on a holiday.”

Harry mostly tuned out Sirius’ rambling, being far more interested in the pastry. He did try not to get any in Sirius’ hair, but still a few bright orange crumbs speckled his ponytail. Harry finished the pastry and licked his fingers clean, and was about to pick the crumbs from his uncle’s head when he found himself lifted from the man’s shoulders. They were right at the front of the table, and when Sirius set him down so he was standing on a chair he could see there, on the plate before him, his own name on the place card. His mum’s was on the last chair at the front, and Sirius’ just to his left.

“Look, we’ll have the best shot to throw food at Fudge,” Sirius said, pointing to the high table. Harry tried to look scandalized, but couldn’t resist a laugh. His mum would throw a fit if she heard Sirius’ suggestion. Unfortunately, her idea about Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, involved a lot less rule-breaking than Harry or Sirius really liked. Still, he had promised to be on his best behavior, which meant even if Sirius did start anything, he had to sit by looking all Lily-like and disapproving. And, of course, apologizing to anyone that Sirius pranked, because Sirius Never Understands Propriety But We Will Always Take The Higher Ground.

Sirius pointed out the different figures in the fountain. The centaur, he said, was particularly inaccurate, because—

He was cut off by another greeting, and with the seats around them filling with people all trying to get his attention never explained. Harry had to say hello to a lot of witches and wizards, most who seemed to greet him like they had known him his whole life. He had only met a handful of British magical folk in his life. His mum had promised to take him to Diagon Alley at Christmas, but that was still a few months off. Most of the wizarding people he had seen had been while travelling, and even then Lily tried to avoid busy times. Some of the people greeting him Sirius smiled at and insulted, and those were the ones Harry knew he liked, so he smiled and relaxed and let his uncle do the talking. If Sirius just said a vague hello, Harry was polite, the way his mum wanted Harry to be. And if Sirius was rude, Harry was polite, because Sirius had a habit of disliking people strongly even when they might not have done anything. His mum hadn’t told Harry that one; he had noticed it himself. He would say it was an adult thing, because his mum was the same way, but he’d never once seen Remus give a stranger the cold shoulder.

Finally Lily slipped into her seat. Her face was red as her hair again, but this time it was because she was angry. “You have crumbs in your hair,” she hissed at Sirius as she sat down.

“That bad, huh,” Sirius said, tapping his head with his wand so the crumbs fell out and onto the floor. He ruffled Harry’s hair, and Harry grinned apologetically, but Sirius’ attention was still on Lily. He didn’t even look down.

“I can’t believe him,” she said. “After all this time you’d think he’d have realized, but—”

Fudge had reached his seat just after her, and tapped his goblet with his wand. It rang clearly across the hall. “Hello, hello!” his voice boomed over the crowd. It seemed to come from everywhere, not the man looking small in front of the fountain statues. “And Happy Halloween!”

There was a thunderous scraping of chairs as people hurried to sit, a sound which Harry imagined to be something close to a dragon’s roar. Some clapped at Fudge’s hello. Those were few and far between; most carried on talking. Harry imagined his teacher yelling at their rudeness. It took several minutes for the hall to quiet down.

“Hello!” Fudge called again. “And welcome to the fifth annual Ministry Halloween Gala! We’ve already seen several familiar faces, and several new ones! And then, of course, there is dear Professor Bagshot, who is not only a familiar face, but a new one.”

This earned several laughs, and though Harry did not know why he looked around, trying to find Bathilda. Two summers before, there had been several brief stays in Godric’s Hollow when his mum decided it was time to fix up the house James had died in. They had stayed at the elderly woman’s home down the road while their house was being repaired. Harry liked her so well he had insisted on sending a present along for Christmas, and in return the woman had sent a whole basket of cauldron cakes. Anyone who sent Harry pastries was automatically in his good favor, as Lily rarely made any herself. Bathilda, unlike his mum, wasn’t reminded of cooking for her husband when she baked for the children, so she had no problem filling him up with scones and cakes at teatime. Unfortunately, though she was a kind woman she was short, and Harry could not spot her in the crowd.

 “And of course,” Fudge carried on when it quieted down again. His booming voice seemed a bit more somber—echoing less—though it was still inescapably loud. “There are several faces we wish could be here, but are not. For many of us, it seems like just yesterday the world was a darker place.”

He paused for a long moment, looking out over the silent crowd, but his eyes came to rest on Harry. The boy squirmed in his seat, and his mother leaned forward, cutting off the look.

“But that is over now!” Fudge’s voice echoed a moment later. “And this is a night of celebration! To five years of peace, and the better world it has become!”

“To peace!” several called back, and the echoing of the words seemed to swell up over itself until words were lost into a thunderous roar.

Harry was amazed to see the food appear on the table in front of him, apparently out of nowhere. No one else seemed particularly surprised. The woman across the table, who had drained a glass of wine in toast and was a good way into another, smiled. “Ah, just like Hogwarts.”

Lily looked over the table, jerking with a harshness that suggesting offense, but her face shifted when she actually saw the woman. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said slowly.

“No, I don’t think we have.” The woman had a monocle and a square jaw, and was clearly older than Sirius and Lily, but still younger than most of the magical folk in attendance. “I am Amelia Bones, and you, of course, are Lily Potter.”

“Yes,” said Lily. “And my son, Harry, and Sirius Black, are to my left here.”

“Of course. You must be the same age as our Susan, Harry,” the woman said. Harry smiled up at her over the piece of black bread he had bitten into, but she turned her curious gaze to Sirius. “We’ve met before. After that incident with the muggle police…?”

Sirius laughed. “Yes, of course. I don’t think anyone will be forgetting that one any time soon. James’ last great act. Congratulations on your induction into the Wizengamot. Youngest witch ever, right?”

“Yes, thank you. I hear there’s been some confusion over your mother’s will.”

“Right,” said Sirius, sighing and picking up his own wine glass, swirling the nearly black liquid around. “She never fixed things after my father and brother died, so now it’s all on me. The Malfoys are stirring up all kinds of trouble.”

They want to change the laws,” Bones said. “It’s a good deal of work on my end. And they’re not realizing that your mother died before anything will be in place, so her will would be executed by the current practices no matter what comes of it. Lucius Malfoy will pour thousands of galleons into open pockets without batting an eyelash, and expects everything he wants to come of it. It’s downright disgraceful, is what it is.”

“Here, here,” said Sirius, lifting his glass to clink against hers. Lily gave in and lifted her own, and Sirius nudged Harry to pick up his goblet of spiced cider. He had to lean halfway out of his chair to reach Bones’ glass across the table.

“It’s nice to see you with such good manners, Mr. Potter,” said Bones. “Your father was, of course, ever the charmer, but reckless to the boot. Just like Mr. Black here. I hope you have more sense.”

“You knew my father?” he asked, curious.

“Have you never told him about the police incident, Mr. Black?” Bones asked. Sirius shook his head, but so did Lily, so Bones just shrugged.

“James and I were on the bike,” Sirius said, ignoring Lily. “We were being followed by three Death Eaters. Only, we were speeding by muggle laws, so some idiot policy-men started after us.”

“Police men, Sirius,” Lily corrected, resigned. She finally took a drink from the glass their impromptu cheers had left her holding. Sirius stuck his tongue out at her, like _he_ was the six-year-old. Harry laughed.

“What happened, then?” the short man at the end seat on Bones’ side of the table asked.

“Mr. Blakely,” Bones said by way of introduction. “My brother in-law. And on my other side here is my husband, Colin.”

“Nice to meet you both,” said Lily. The tight-lipped Mr. Bones merely nodded and continued to slowly chew his steak.

“So James and I kept them on our tails, right—we didn’t want to fly ‘cause the Death Eaters were on brooms. But eventually we realized we couldn’t just leave the muggles behind, could we? So we led them into an alleyway. When the Death Eaters showed up, we dropped them right out of the sky, so they were all sitting right there for the muggles to take in.”

“Poor men didn’t know what to make of it,” Bones said. “Both were obliviated, of course, but one kept having trouble seeing motorcycles after that… Well, needless to say, Mr. Potter was always a troublemaker. It was such a hassle to work out with the muggles, because in those days most of the time we could just chalk it up to a terrorist group. Only, everyone who had seen what happened knew that wasn’t the case. The Prime Minister had to be called.”

“What’s a terrorist group’?” Harry asked. Lily patted his head.

“Not now, dear,” she said, which in Harry’s opinion was unfair, because it was this woman who had brought it up and it wasn’t his fault he didn’t know. He was only six, after all. Lily spooned mashed yams onto his plate, though, and Harry was distracted.

“And the three they brought in—the aurors brought in, that is, once they arrived on the scene—claimed to have been attacked, and they didn’t have anything on their wands we could charge them for, worse. Mr. Black and Mr. Potter both received two week suspension from their auror training, if I remember correctly.”

“Merlin’s balls they didn’t have anything on their wands,” Sirius growled, making the wizard next to him choke on his drink. That led to another round of introductions with the next sets of witches and wizards down the table, which Harry ignored in favor of the feast.

While the quiet Mr. Bones kept the adults hanging off his words with the tale from when he had met Mrs. Bones causing his own bit of trouble, Harry enjoyed noodles that wiggled like worms and a meat pie with spiders imprinted on the crust. He ate so much he couldn’t keep track of how many times he had to gulp down cider in between, but the food was delicious, and there were so many things he had never seen before. It was nearing the end of the meal that he finally slowed down his pace and started listening to the adult’s conversation again. His mum’s hand had found its way into his hair, and she sat there twirling a strand absently. She didn’t look like she’d touched her plate, but the wine glass hadn’t left her hand.

“—and I told my brother, you can’t go around saying things like that!” Mrs. Bones was saying. She seemed to have had several more glasses of wine, as her cheeks were flushed and her words coming a bit slower. “But he did, and his poor wife… Of course we love Susan dearly, but wouldn’t it have been better?” She burped softly. “And now the <minister wants to relax the laws again? And with Fudge pushing for the repeal of International Decree Seven…”

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Lily said. “Ridiculous.”

“Lily,” Sirius said. “Maybe we should be heading out now?”

Harry blinked sleepily. He wouldn’t have minded going home. The food had made him so drowsy, and though it had been exiting to see all the different people at first they were just people, after all. His mother had different ideas, apparently.

“Don’t be a spoil-sport, Sirius,” Lily said. “Can’t you see we’re all just having a grand old time? The Minister—the Minister, who didn’t even show up—the Minister called us all together to have a party and socialize and here we are, socializing. Isn’t it grand?”

Mrs. Bones snorted into her wine glass. Harry watched the men on either side of her exchange glances over her head, in that adult way, but Bones didn’t seem to notice. “To tell the truth,” she whispered to Lily, and even though it was so loud the wizard on Sirius’ left must have been able to hear her clearly Lily leaned in. “We’re only here because Fudge said we would have the best seat in the house, what with me being the most recently inducted. Apparently—” and she lost the word into repetition of ‘rently’ for a moment and had to pause “—I’m the youngest judge in the century!”

“And the drunkest judge in the century,” said her husband.

“And all those other judges—you know them? They’ve been coming to this little get-together-party-thing for the last four years. The first year? Celebrations so loud they were shaking the fountains. And it’s like they don’t even—”

“Like they don’t even remember,” Lily finished for her. She leaned back in her seat.

Fudge had, at some point, abandoned his position at the high table and was wandering about the crowds. He came into earshot just as she finished the statement. “Don’t remember what, Ms. Potter?” he asked cheerfully, oblivious of the mood.

Harry did his best not to yawn, which made him cough. But the sound was overshadowed by a simultaneous cough from Mr. Bones. Lily, of course, charged ahead without notice.

“Mrs. Potter, if you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Fudge. My husband may be dead, but I still married him, if you remember.”

“Well, yes, of course, Mrs. Potter,” Fudge said, his smile breaking.

“Which is exactly my point. Because here we are, celebrating!” She waved her wine glass out towards the crowds, the red liquid sloshing over her pale hands. She did not seem to notice. “Partying! Like hundreds of people didn’t die for—for what? Pumpkin juice and bats? Goblin wine?”

“Mrs. Potter,” Fudge said, having turned, at this point, a shade of red rather like his orange robes. “Of course we haven’t forgotten.”

He realized, suddenly, looking up, that everyone in the surrounding area had once again quieted, and that once again there were eyes and ears fixed on him from all around. He cleared his throat.

“Of course we haven’t forgotten,” he repeated, louder. “What did I say earlier? There are many we wish could be among us—your husband included—”

“I’m glad he isn’t!”

Her voice echoed sharply through the hall as she stood, turning to face him. Wine splashed over Harry as the glass passed over his head, but it was Sirius, not Lily, who immediately started dabbing at his godson’s face with a napkin.

“I’m glad my husband does not have to see this! What is this—this _revelry_ on what we mark as an important ceasefire in a battle, a respite to mourn our dead and prepare for the future? This toast to peace when peace is about as certain as—as—as the sun orbiting the earth? Perspective, Fudge, allows us to blind ourselves, and here we sit eating as merrily as though the dead did not die in sacrifice, to put us at an advantage when darkness comes again!”

Fudge’s face looked as though his had been the one with wine spilled over it. “Mrs. Potter!” he exclaimed. “What is this ridiculous nonsense! You—you were instrumental in the end of things! You saw You-Know-Who die yourself!”

“No, Fudge,” she said coldly. Her voice seemed to fill the hall—though that was impossible, really; it was far too large and she had not cast any magic. But all eyes were watching her. “I saw a magical backlash that made no sense. I saw the moment his curse hit my son, and saw the body disappear. I saw the explanation of this anomaly waved off as a fairytale ending.” She leaned a little closer to the man, taking advantage that she was taller than him in her heels. “You’ve been making your bids for Minister Bagnold’s seat, so I’ll tell you the same thing I told her: _there is no such thing as a fairytale ending.”_

The man was left spluttering for words when she turned her back on him, collecting her cloak from where it rested on the back of her seat. He had to step aside as she cast it over her shoulders. “Madame Bones,” she said, ignoring him still. “Thank you for the conversation. Do write. Sirius?”

 

 

_There is a photo, tucked away in a folder, buried in what is left of the archives of the Daily Prophet. It has not seen the light of day in many years, and perhaps will not until someone curious goes digging into the past. But the scene is burned into the minds of all left who saw it: a woman, as vengeful an image as that of Morgana, gliding through a crowd of hundreds, all eyes looking up at her. Short hair floating like fire around her head, green eyes glittering with candlelight, freckled skin looking all the lighter against the fur lining of her black cloak. The echoes of footsteps, and a man carrying a tired child in her wake: the boy that would change the future._

_It is said that fame did not suit Lily Potter. But fame had forced itself on her, and she did not care to change herself for it. She always believed she should not have to change herself to suit the world around her. Perhaps such phrasing was a kindness: others would say much more directly that she was the sort of woman to try and shape the world to her own imagining._

_Harry Potter often wished that the image of his mother that the newspapers used in equal parts to slander and support her was the image he remembered from that Halloween. It was not. Lily Potter changed that night. She stopped trying to run from the past, and rose up instead to face it._

_When they had returned from the disastrous gala, she had silenced Sirius’ laughter and sent him and Remus home. For a long time she sat in the dark, the ocean pounding in her ears._

_She woke her son._

_“Harry,” she said. “Do you remember your father?”_

_She could not control the world. She could not control the Ministry, or how magical folk lived their day-to-day lives. She could not force vigilance upon them, or force them to remember the past._

_“Do you remember how he died? Do you remember how you got that scar?”_

_Her son, her Harry, would not be blind. Someday, when the fact that he was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was inescapable—when she could not protect him—when the magical world, in it’s insolent ignorance, was unready to face reality—he would be strong enough._

_The pensive was on the table. Harry did not remember, but Lily would make sure he would never forget._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's chapter three! One thing I would like to note before we get to part II of this section--I am not from France. I do not speak French. I know one person who is French-American, but other than that, my knowledge of France (let alone the French education system) is limited to what I research with Google searches. And while I think, for the most part, that the artistic liberties I'll take are well within reason, if there is anything that stands out to you as particularly wrong, PLEASE LET ME KNOW SO I CAN CORRECT IT. My research usually starts with a wikipedia page and extends to links following, and additional searches if that isn't satisfactory, and usually I end up down rabbit holes--but I have no first-hand experience or deep studying to back things up, so don't hesitate to let me know.  
> Your comments are the wine filling my metaphorical wine glass--uh, I mean, great for keeping words moving liberally. Thank you again, and see you next week!


	4. An Old Road, Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential CW for this chapter and the next: bullying

 

On November first, two years following the disastrous gala, Harry yawned as he sat at the back of a classroom. He was tired: his mother, for the third year in the row, had woken him in the night to share her memories of when he was a baby. After a sight like that, a boy did not sleep. He could not sleep, for fear that he, like her, would not know the difference between sleeping and waking. The horror. The shrill voice. _The Green Light_.

In the classroom, the children were oblivious to the history his mind dwelled on. Their minds were, for the most part, focused in anger on the clock.

 _“Children,”_ the teacher said. Her voice had the harshness of the local dialect, the one that Harry had always known. _“As you can see, bullying is not tolerated here. Until whoever does this comes forward, we will all sit, in silence, waiting. It doesn’t matter if the bell rings. We will wait.”_

They had been sitting for an hour already. On returning from their time in the yard, there had been a commotion when one of the desks was found filled with grass snakes. The boy whose desk it was, Claude, had cried so hard he had to leave the room. The groundskeeper had been called in to remove the snakes, which complained in loud hisses about being disturbed from the warm dark place they had been found to sit, and the class had been returned to order. Then they sat in silence, while the teacher waited for the culprit to come forward.

In truth, Miss Lapointe’s heart was still pounding in her chest. She had no idea what to make of the situation. Having been raised running around in the fields of an abandoned housing development of one of the local villages, she had no fear of snakes, but still the sight of so many gave her stomach a turn. How anyone could have gotten so many into the classroom was beyond her—and her usual suspect was, in this case, the victim. The remaining boys in his posse were hardly laughing.

One child in the room had gone pale and was shaking in his seat. Nicolas Baudin. That did not surprise Miss Lapointe. Nicolas was a short boy with asthma, and Claude’s most recent victim. The staff had not caught the bullies in any action, and Nicolas was far too timid to speak up for himself, so Claude’s crime had, as usual, gone unpunished. Miss Lapointe had no doubt in her mind that Nicolas had no part in this incident. She supposed that he was imagining the terror that Claude would wreak on him if no one came forward, and almost pitied the boy shaking in his seat.

The whole class was silent as the bell rang. The children looked at her expectantly, but Miss Lapointe did her best to remain stone-faced. She considered letting the girls go, but a moment after chided herself for the stereotyping. Girls could be just as cruel as boys. Worse, when their minds were set on it. This was only her third year teaching, but she had gone to school. She remembered.

Miss Lapointe sighed. This was exactly what she had learned to hate about her job. She had thought—a smart girl like her, shouldn’t she share that, help shape the children of the country? She had thought. In truth, she had been carrying an idealized vision of children, thinking that if she were simply _nice_ to them, they would be _nice_ in return, and through that circle of _niceness_ she would somehow shape them into brilliant students who loved to learn from her as much as she loved to teach them. Well, she had succeeded in that sense: the students loved her as little as she loved them. But she was not a woman who gave up so easily. Maybe teaching had not been the romantic career of goodness she had envisioned, but she would not let that defeat her. She would show these children at least something, before they were passed onto the next teacher.

One of the girls raised her hand tentatively. The other stared at her, but Miss Lapointe could see by the lack of guilt in her face it had nothing to do with the incident. “ _Yes, El?”_ she asked.

 _“Miss,_ ” the girl said. _“Miss, some of us have to take the bus back to the villages. If we don’t catch the bus, we’ll not be able to go home, miss.”_

 _“That is true,”_ Miss Lapointe said. _“And this is a difficult situation, isn’t it? But that is what happens, El, when this sort of incident occurs. We cannot just let bullying slide.”_

The children looked at each other in shock. She remembered having to catch the bus out of the town. The villages did not have their own schools, so they all gathered here, in this town just large enough to warrant one, but that meant the children had to be bussed over all together. Mostly their parents were farmers, or, if not that, were one of two workers in a store or café or bar. They could not spare the time to fetch their children. Miss Lapointe knew this too deeply: her own father had worked in a granary and her mother had been far too busy caring for her other six children to worry about one missing the bus. If one missed it in the morning, they spent the day helping out around the house. If they missed it in the evening, they had to wait until their father got off work at nine, and then the hour it took for him to drive out to pick them up. No, Miss Lapointe would not hold them so long that they would miss the bus. She looked at the clock, and gave it eight minutes. Enough the children would have to run, but not so much that they would be in any real danger.

The minutes ticked down with the children exchanging glances in growing alarm. The ones who lived in town—about a third—were not concerned over getting home, but they longed to be free of the oppressive atmosphere of the classroom in punishment. Many of the village children were sitting half out of their seats, prepared to bolt the moment she gave the word.

As the seventh minute ticked away, Miss Lapointe found herself disappointed yet again. She prepared her speech on why bullying was a horrible thing, and a warning that they would be losing their yard time the next day, but before she could clear her throat to voice it, the horrible scraping of a chair against the hardwood floors sounded in the classroom, making several students jump. She looked up.

The boy who stood in the back of the classroom was one of the village children. He wasn’t one of the typical farmers or villagers, no. He lived out in the old estate that had been in ruins for ages. His mother, as far as she understood, was single, and English, and had short hair that made the older women whisper _lesbian_ under their breath. But she had never had any trouble with James Jeannot. He was a quiet child, and played equally with the main groups of children. He never bothered any of the other children, and none of them ever bothered him. His school work was always done decently, and he had never caused trouble in the classroom.

 _“Yes, James?”_ she asked, but was certain that this was, in fact, the true confession. A quiet boy like him wouldn’t speak up otherwise. _“I put the snakes in Claude’s desk, Miss Lapointe,”_ he said. Most of the children gaped. He had probably known several since he had moved to France, so they too thought this was out of character. But how well did any of them really know the boy?

“ _Very well,_ ” she said slowly. “ _Mr. Jeannot, please come with me. The rest of you can pack up.”_

The class was a flurry of activity in the next seconds. She kept an eye on the boy as he came forward; there were a few shoulders in his way, but nothing serious. Now that she saw him among the rest of his classmates, she realized James was almost as small as Nicolas, and not so pudgy. She wondered that she had not noticed before, but he could be the prime target for bullies. She imagined his father must have been Asian or Indian, somewhere along; she’d met his mother once and she clearly was not, but the boy had tan skin that most of the children had lost this late in the year, and his eyes, beneath the round glasses, were so dark they felt unnatural. As he was quite small, he had never caught her eye, but to a bully the unnoticed were prime targets.

He stood in silence as she waited a few moments for the rest of the children to stream into the

cloakroom, then followed as she locked the classroom door. She was unnerved by James’ silence. He wasn’t crying or muttering, or laughing at having nearly gotten away with his prank. He didn’t say a thing, and she couldn’t see his face, but she didn’t imagine there to be any guilt written on it. He didn’t seem the type of boy that would feel guilt. The thought disturbed her.

They made their way down the hall to the teachers’ office. Luckily, most of the other teachers would still be in their classrooms; most filled the hour after classes ended with grading, or left immediately following the bell. The few staff members passing through nodded as they entered, and old Mrs. Norman, the year one teacher, even said hello.

“ _Good afternoon, Jaime,”_ she said fondly. _“Did you miss the bus? Don’t worry, your sister made it alright.”_

James smiled at her vaguely, but didn’t say anything. Mrs. Norman looked to Miss Lapointe for answers. She shook her head and hurried James along to the couches near the corner, where he sat while she hurried to the secretary’s desk.

“ _Hey, Di,”_ she said. _“Could you put in a call to Mrs. Jeannot? The mother of James, my class. Tell her I need her to come in for a meeting about her son. Urgently.”_

The woman pulled out a book labeled ‘Lapointe’ and started flipping through the pages. “ _What’s the matter?”_ She asked, then leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “ _Is it about the snake incident?”_

 _“Yes,”_ said Miss Lapointe. The secretary reached James’ page, where his school portrait stared up at her.

“ _Oh!”_ the secretary exclaimed, tracing down to Mrs. Jeannot’s phone number. “ _Him? But he’s such a sweet boy!”_

_“Is he? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a word out of him that wasn’t strictly called for.”_

_“Probably not,”_ Di agreed, even as she reached to dial the phone. _“But you know last year, when I was covering in the library because Jacqueline was out? He used to—yes, Mrs. Jeannot?”_

Miss Lapointe left Di to sort out things with Mrs. Jeannot and returned to the couches. James had his feet up so he could wrap his arms around his knees. The teacher was going to scold him, but it was such a pathetic pose she could not bring herself to. Instead she took a seat across from him and looked—really looked—at the boy.

Underneath the odd round glasses, the boy’s dark eyes were ringed pink, but his face was still. He stared back at her, expression caught between defensive and resigned. It was an odd mix. There was something else as well, but was it guilt? Fear? Pride? Underneath his silence she could not tell. Maybe she was imagining everything. His darkish skin was strangely slack.

 _“How did you do it?”_ she asked at last, as Di droned on in the background. The boy shifted, his head tilting in dog-like confusion.

_“Aren’t you going to ask me why?”_

_“Don’t talk back to me,”_ she said, but paused. “ _We’ll get to that. How did you do it?”_

James shrugged. _“I found them outside, and picked them up and carried them back into the classroom. Snakes like dark, warm places, you know.”_

 _“I lock the classroom after lunch,”_ she said. James looked up, like he was trying to remember something, but then shook his head.

_“It wasn’t locked, or I wouldn’t have been able to get in.”_

She bit back a sigh. _“And that many snakes? How were you able to get them all in?”_

 _“The way anyone would, I suppose,”_ he said. _“They’re really gentle creatures, at least with humans. They’re too afraid of us to be otherwise.”_

She had never heard snakes described as gentle before.

_“There must have been twenty in his desk, at least.”_

_“Thirty three.”_ At least he did not look like he would smile. This would be much more difficult if he found the situation amusing in some way, but he didn’t seem to. That was reassuring to her, reassuring that this would not be a repeated case.

 _“Why did you do it?”_ she asked at last, when the silence between them had grown heavy. The boy’s face grew more still, unnerving in the same way as his silence.

 _“Claude’s a bully,”_ he said, his voice a bit quieter, but somehow more resolved. _“He’s a bully and no one does anything about it.”_

_“So you decided to bully him in return?”_

At last, in the tiniest hitch of breath, the boy began to show some emotion beyond coolness. _“You didn’t do anything when he took Nicolas’ lunch.”_

 _“Do you think I should have taken his lunch, to be fair, then?”_ she asked. _“To just repeat the cruelty onto him? Do you think that sort of cyclic hate solves anything?”_

_“I…. don’t know what that means.”_

_“It means that when someone hurts you, you want to hurt them, and then they want to hurt you, and on and on and—”_

_“I didn’t want to hurt anyone!”_ the boy cried, but then he shut his mouth and locked his jaw. She couldn’t get a read from his eyes. As dark as they were, she couldn’t try to understand them. It bothered her. Her eyes drifted around his face. His brow, she noticed, was a shade lighter than the rest of his face, though most of it was hidden under his fringe of ebony hair. His cheek wobbled, like he was physically forcing himself to stay still so he would not say anything else.

“ _You didn’t?”_ she echoed, incredulous. _“James, you put thirty-three snakes in Claude’s desk. He had to go to the nurse’s; they were scared he might hyperventilate at the shock.”_

 _“I know.”_ He almost smiled—almost, but the look on his face turned into one of horror. _“He’s a vile, nasty person,”_ he said, but his voice was small, and with none of that strength any more.

_“Do you believe that, or are you trying to justify what you did?”_

_“I believe it,”_ he said, and she believed him. But his voice remained small. _“He’s mean for no reason, and to people who won’t stand up for themselves.”_

_“So you think it’s your job to stand up for them?”_

_“Someone has to!”_ he said fiercely. And he looked up and glared, like somehow this was her fault. _“You certainly haven’t.”_

That hit her in the gut. Here she was, trying to solve one incident of bullying, only to be pulling on the latest link in a whole chain. How little of the children’s world was she seeing? She expected so little of them, yet they surpassed her worst expectations. Still, it was her chastising this boy, not the other way around.

“ _So you became the bully,”_ she said.

“ _I—”_ He swallowed his words, and his gaze slipped to the side. But then he seemed to blink, collecting his fragmented emotions back together. _“He hurt my sister,”_ he said, much calmer. _“And only someone vile would do that.”_

_“And someone vile deserves to be hurt?”_

He did not respond.

Miss Lapointe sighed, sitting back into her armchair. This was certainly turning out to be a much more complicated matter than she had wanted to deal with. She had hoped it would just be a kid who would admit it: he wanted Claude to suffer because Claude was a bully. But James refused to admit it, and so would refuse to admit he was in the wrong. Clearly he knew that he was not responsible for this sort of justice. But at the same time, he was also apparently expecting that she would be the one to deal it out, and she had failed. What was a child supposed to do, when he saw adults not raising a finger to cease injustice? Certainly he had not seen everything—they were trying to catch Claude in the act, so he could be taught an appropriate lesson—but then again, he was among Claude’s pool of potential victims, so it must be a much more urgent matter to him than her.

They sat staring at each other for a good long while, until James once again lost his composure and slumped back in his seat too, his posture matching hers.

 _“What did Claude do to your sister?”_ she asked a few minutes later, when she remembered. He looked up again.

_“What?”_

_“You said he hurt your sister.”_

The boy just stared at her. _“Why?”_ he asked. _“You’re not going to do anything about it, anyways.”_

They waited in silence for some twenty minutes more. Finally Liliane Jeannot came through the front office. _“Miss Lapointe,”_ Di called back to them. _“Mrs. Jeannot is here.”_

Is seemed too soon. James was from one of the villages; it should have taken his mother longer to get here. But they did live out on the estate, so, she mused, it was highly likely the Jeannots were both wealthy and eccentric. Mrs. Jeannot may very well have sped all the way here in some ridiculous car. Or she may have been reached at work—where did Mrs. Jeannot work? Miss Lapointe tried to remember as she stood, but she had only seen the woman once, and never spoken personally.

She led James out the door beside Di’s desk, and they emerged in the office on the other side. Despite wracking her memories to recall the woman’s profession, she was unprepared for the sight of the woman that stood waiting. In the most simple terms, she was beautiful. She looked like her son, it was true: the same silky black hair, though hers was loosely curled around her face; tan skin, though lighter than her son’s; grey eyes. She was dressed in a pinstriped pencil skirt and matching blazer over a simple white blouse, as though she had just come from a secretary job in the city. James seemed to stiffen at the sight of her; Miss Lapointe wondered if this was in fact a woman coming off work, though she could not guess where Mrs. Jeannot could work within a half hour drive where such attire would be common.

“ _Miss Lapointe,”_ she said gravely. Although Miss Lapointe wasn’t sure she was not the same age as this woman, she suddenly felt very young. _“I am not fond of being called out. Your secretary mentioned an incident, and was quite insistent.”_

 _“Yes,”_ the teacher said. _“Yes. Would you like to come sit down? I’m afraid we need to have a bit of a chat with James here.”_

The woman gestured to the plain armchairs in the office waiting area. _“Won’t here do?”_

 _“I don’t see why not,”_ Miss Lapointe agreed. She felt, for some reason, like she was giving in, though it was a perfectly reasonable suggestion. The three sat at the three armchairs, and Di went back to her typing. Strange, Miss Lapointe thought. Three seemed like an odd number of armchairs to equip the sitting room. She had never noticed before.

 _“James,”_ Mrs. Jeannot was saying before the teacher realized it. _“Would you like to tell me what you’ve done?”_

The boy shook his head.

“James.”

His shoulders sunk, and he mumbled something. His mother did not so much as bat an eyelash.

Finally he said something, a bit louder, in English. Miss Lapointe spoke English decently after university, but she wasn’t in practice and hadn’t been expecting it, either.

 _“What?”_ Mrs. Jeannot asked, in French.

_“I put snakes in Claude’s desk.”_

To her credit, Mrs. Jeannot did not say anything, but confusion did reach her face. _“Snakes?”_

 _“He put thirty three, by his count, in Claude’s desk_ ,” Miss Lapointe clarified. Mrs. Jeannot raised an eyebrow, though she seemed almost amused. She shook her head, and the expression faded.

 _“James,”_ she chided. _“Why would you do something like that?”_

_“He broke Holly’s horse!”_

It was the first time since his mother arrived that his passions were raised. The teacher was puzzled by the statement, but assumed that Holly was his sister and her horse was some toy. The intense response did not seem to faze his mother, however; she merely tilted her head and crossed her arms, bemusement working a furrow into her brow.

 _“So that’s where it went,_ ” she said at last. _“Regardless, it was wrong.”_

 _“It was,”_ Miss Lapointe agreed, when James stayed silent. It was strange, but she felt at distance from the conversation. Normally, when parents were called in they tried to apologize for their child, or they yelled at them so aggressively it became clear why there had been a problem at all. But Mrs. Jeannot, like her son, seemed levelheaded to an extreme. She was certainly a good deal more effective in the interrogation than Miss Lapointe was, as the same questions the teacher had asked had taken the mother half the time to pose and had actually been answered. _“Claude had to be taken home early. He was in such a state of shock. It was a terribly cruel thing to do.”_

_“James knows that. Don’t you, James.”_

The boy tried to stay quiet again, looking at his hands. The thin fingers were gripping the edge of the chair’s cushion so tightly his knuckles were turning white.

“ _James. You know what you did was wrong, right?”_

 _“Yes,”_ he mumbled.

_“It was mean.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Do you feel bad about it?”_

The boy hesitated, and looked up with the same expression had in their earlier conversation: slack-faced, calculating. _“I don’t know,”_ he said honestly. _“I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”_

_“But you still did it. You made a mistake.”_

He waited a beat, but nodded. _“Yes.”_

Mrs. Jeannot nodded, and looked to Miss Lapointe. _“I assume there is some sort of standardized punishment from the school regarding these sorts of things.”_

The teacher nodded. _“Well, it is a bit of an unusual case. But there will be lines, in place of yard time, for several days. And he will need to apologize to Claude, of course.”_

 _“Of course,”_ Mrs. Jeannot repeated. _“James will do that. Won’t you, James.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Is there anything else you need from us, Miss Lapointe?”_ Mrs. Jeannot asked.

Miss Lapointe opened her mouth to speak, but found no words waiting on her tongue. This woman was an anomaly among mothers, a force of nature that seemed to lift the teacher up from her intentions and deposit her in an entirely different state. She had swept in and resolved the situation with all the pomp and circumstance of a herd of cattle crossing a highway—only quickly. Far too quickly, all things considered.

 _“James will need to get his things from the classroom,”_ she said at last.

“ _Yes,”_ Mrs. Jeannot said. _“I will take him home, as the bus has already left. I assume Holly was on it by herself?”_

 _“She’ll stay with her friend Martel until we go get her,”_ James said, as smoothly as though he had spoken to the girl beforehand. Miss Lapointe wondered at that. She would need to speak with the girl’s teacher, to see if there was something deeper going on. Though put-together as Mrs. Jeannot appeared it seemed impossible to imagine anything out of place in their family life—besides the absence of the father, of course—Miss Lapointe could not imagine the woman in the suit coming home to the ramshackle manor house.

 _“Still, we’ll have to hurry,”_ the woman said, drawing her sleeve up to check an elegant silver watch. _“We don’t want to worry her.”_

The three of them stood, and Miss Lapointe found herself leading the way through deserted halls to the classroom. She unlocked the door and James slipped past, hurrying to his seat to collect his things.

This left Miss Lapointe in a curious position waiting in the doorway with Mrs. Jeannot. A quick glance out of the corner of her eye revealed that the woman’s nose was longer than suited her profile. Somehow the teacher took satisfaction in noticing this.

“ _I trust something is being done about this ‘Claude’,”_ Mrs. Jeannot said quietly, eyes on her son. Miss Lapointe flinched slightly, but tried to disguise it by raising a hand to fix her hair. She caught herself and wondered why she bothered.

 _“It’s been a difficult year so far,”_ she admitted. _“Bullying in the yard is common enough, but usually we can catch a child in the act before it grows into too much of an issue. Claude is… a work in progress.”_

 _“My daughter came home in tears yesterday, Miss Lapointe,”_ Mrs. Jeannot said sharply. Her unsmiling face turned towards the teacher, staring down. Though her face was lacking in blemishes or wrinkles, there was a tightness in the skin around her eyes that made Miss Lapointe swallow. _“She is only a six-year-old girl, a year one. They should not be expected to defend themselves from children of the upper years, should they?”_

 _“No,”_ Miss Lapointe agreed. _“I’m afraid I wasn’t even aware of the incident until I interviewed James this afternoon.”_

_“This school’s discipline system is a disappointment.”_

Miss Lapointe was still distracted by the intensity of her stare. Grey eyes like dusty cement. They could have been beautiful, on someone else, but on this woman, they were a weapon. Unnatural and cold.

Mrs. Jeannot looked away.

_“I cannot believe that my children would be trying to take a bullying incident into their own hands without dire circumstances. James has been raised to the belief that bullying is wrong, Miss Lapointe. He knows the difference between a prank and cruelty.”_

_“I expect so. But even the best of children slip up.”_

The woman clicked her tongue. James was returning, carrying his book bag across from the cloakroom. “ _Is that everything?”_ She asked her son. The boy nodded. _“Alright, then. Miss Lapointe, I apologize for James’ conduct, and the time you had to take out of your day for it. Good afternoon.”_

Mrs. Jeannot turned and guided her son away, a firm hand on his shoulder, without waiting for the teacher’s response. Miss Lapointe watched them walk down the hall for a moment, then turned to lock the classroom door again. When she turned back, the pair was gone.

As she returned to the staff lounge to collect her own things, Miss Lapointe thought about the day’s strange events. She still could not figure out how such a small boy had managed to get all those snakes into the desk. A bag, perhaps—but he still had to get into a locked room. She would have to check the windows; perhaps one of them was loose and he had managed to slip through. He was quite small.

As she came back into the office, she found Di staring into the space around the armchairs. _“What a woman,”_ Miss Lapointe said, assuming the secretary focused on the earlier conversation. _“Honestly, I’ve never felt so out-classed. I ought to ask her for lessons in managing children.”_

Di didn’t reply. Miss Lapointe sighed and went through to collect her things. Di was nice enough, but she could be a bit odd. They had been in school together, but while Miss Lapointe headed to University Di had married right away.

After the long day, it was a relief that her stack of homework to grade was light. She packed away her class logs into her bag and snapped it shut, looking out the window, trying to decide whether to wrap her scarf around her neck or leave it folded in the pocket of her pea coat.

Outside, the sky had turned grey, and wind was starting to pick up in the trees. Miss Lapointe’s brow furrowed. Not an hour earlier the sky had been clear and blue, the early November sun shining down as the children hurried out the doors. Now the clouds hung heavy in the sky. She wound the scarf tightly around her neck, tucking the ends into her coat collar, and picked up her bag, rummaging in her pockets for her car keys. She had to put down the bag again and unbutton her coat, finding them in the pocket of her sweater, and by the time she was ready to leave again a thin but fast rain had started falling. Hurrying out of the lounge and into the office, she said goodbye to Di.

Di did not respond. Miss Lapointe almost hurried out without noticing, but she paused at the door and turned back. The secretary was still staring at the same spot amongst the armchairs. Her usually ruddy face had gone pale, and not a hair had moved since Miss Lapointe had gone past her first time.

_“Di?”_

Finally the woman looked up at her.

 _“You know,”_ she said, voice dragging. _“I sit here for nine hours, every day.”_

_“Well, yes, you are the secretary…”_

_“There’s not a lot to do.”_

_“No?”_

_“And I’ve seen a lot of strange things.”_

_“I can only imagine.”_

_“But…”_

The woman nodded towards the chairs. They seem plain and unassuming enough, especially now that Mrs. Jeannot had left them behind.

_“We’ve only ever had two armchairs.”_

 

_A storm, evening. Two children sat in candle-lit dark. Out the window the grass whipped back and forth, swooshing like waves battered by the rain. Their mother had been called to the hospital, and there hadn’t been enough time to summon their Uncles._

_“Don’t leave this room, either of you,” she said, downing a potion and turning red hair black, freckles spreading to turn her whole skin tan. “And Harry, make sure you get some sleep. You have school tomorrow.”_

_“Yes, mum.”_

_She shut the door and the whole house shook with silence._

_“Harry,” the girl said, some time later. The boy didn’t look up from his homework, chewing on the end of his pencil._

_“Harry!”_

_“What?”_

_“I have to use the toilet.”_

_“Then go.”_

_“Mum said not to leave!”_

_“I don’t think she meant that you couldn’t go to the loo.”_

_Silence. Harry finished the maths problem and went on to the next. He liked maths—not as much as reading, but it was like a game._

_“Harry?”_

_“What?”_

_“I’m scared.”_

_He sighed. “It’s just down the hall, Hols.” But he stood up. “Come on, I’ll stand outside. That’ll be fine, right?”_

_When they came back, he sank back onto his bed. Holly sat on the end of it, staring at his homework._

_“What?” he asked again._

_“Why don’t I get to play the game?”_

_Harry blinked. His name was written at the top of the page, but it wasn’t really his name. James Jeannot. Their mum always called it the game: “You’ll play James, and you can’t let anyone know that you’re really Harry, or you lose. Understand?_ Understand, James?”

_He didn’t understand, and neither did his sister, apparently. “You do play,” he said. “You call me James when we’re in town, and you’ll be Hollis Jeannot, at school.”_

_“But if you’re James, why can’t I play Lily?”_

_Harry looked up at her. “You know I’m not playing dad, Hols,” he said. “Its just his name.”_

_“Oh,” she said. She looked disappointed, though, so he indulged her._

_“Well?” he said. “If you were playing Lily, what would you do right now?”_

_“Uhmmm,” she said, biting her lip. She looked around, then grinned. “I know!” she said. She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “HARRY!” she shouted. “You put that candle out right now! It’s time for bed, not reading!”_

_Harry laughed. “You’ll have to work on it,” he said. Holly pouted, but sat back down. Harry, however, was staring at the candle. “Want to play a game, Hols?” He asked._

_“What type of game? A secret game?”_

_“Mm-hmm. Except you’ve got to keep a secret from mum.”_

_She giggled. “Okay,” she said. “What’s the secret?”_

_“Come here.”_

_He stood, pulling his sister towards the desk. The table sat on the corner of it, and they both stared at it._

_“Harry? What’s the secret?”_

_The candle went out, and the girl shrieked, grabbing her brother’s arm._

_“Harry! Bring it back!”_

_“Okay.”_

_The flame re-appeared. He looked down at his sister, who let go and glared at him with nose wrinkled, and was about to say something when her mouth opened into an ‘o’._

_“That was magic!” she whispered. Harry grinned._

_“Look,” he said. The flame started bending back and forth, as though it were being buffeted by the wind that raced around the manor, but the rest of the room was still._

_“Wow,” said Hollis. “When do I get to do that?”_

_“I dunno,” said Harry. “But you can’t tell mum, alright?”_

_“Okay,” she said. She looked up at her brother. “This means you’re going to Hogwarts, right? Like mum and dad and Siri and Rem?”_

_“Not until I’m eleven,” he said. He turned back to the bed, but his homework was suddenly less exciting now that he had magic and Hogwarts on his mind. His sister came over and laid down beside him._

_“Harry,” she said. “Tell me one of Sirius’ stories about Hogwarts.”_

_“You know them all as well as I do.”_

_“I know. But I want a story.”_

_He turned his head to face her, thinking. “Okay,” he said at last. “Once, when Prongs was fourteen and Padfoot was fifteen, Prongs received a letter from home…”_

 

The radio in the car broke again. The storm brewing overhead was sending down waves of static, washing over the car with white noise. Between the buzzing, a woman crooned in German over a man an ocean away.

“So,” said Lily. She spoke in English, as she usually did with her son, to ensure he did not lose his proficiency. Not that he would, with all the British TV he watched, but she still felt it was important to keep him aware of his true home. “Tell me about Claude.”

In the passenger seat, Harry sighed and slumped. She had no doubt he would find guilt for what he had done; the boy could hardly tease his sister without worrying about it later. But he had still chosen to fill a boy’s desk with snakes—Merlin knows how—and there had to be good reason.

“He’s mean to everyone,” Harry said. “He wasn’t this bad when we started school, but then he started spending time with Jaque and Maurice and all three of them started picking on the others. I don’t get it. Jaque used to be so nice.”

“How are they mean?”

“Well, there’s a boy in our class, Nicolas. He’s from town, so you wouldn’t know him, but he’s supposed to buy lunch from the cafeteria every day, so he always has a little bit of money. Claude and the others take it to buy sweets.”

Stealing lunch money? It sounded too ridiculous to be true, but when Lily thought back to her days in Primary, she could remember that sort of thing happening. “So why doesn’t he tell the teacher?”

Harry shrugged. “Claude probably said they would beat him up. And the teachers don’t do anything.”

Outside the car, lightning flashed in the distance. She sped up a bit, thinking of Hollis, who did not like thunder, at her friend’s house without her brother. Normally he would distract her during a storm, reading her a story or watching a movie or, on at least one occasion, giving in and playing dolls with the girl.

“And he broke Holly’s horse,” Harry added. It took Lily a moment to realize he meant Claude.

“She didn’t bring it home with her yesterday.”

“The teacher threw it away. She said it was in bits, and wouldn’t let me have it.”

“Did he choose to bother Hollis over something you did?”

“I don’t know!” Harry ran his fingers through his hair. It was a habit shockingly similar to the one James had always had—only her son was always flattening his hair, not fluffing it up. “I mean, we mostly ignore each other, ‘less we’re playing football, but then it’s just playing, right? I don’t know why he would go after Hols!”

“That’s the thing about being nice,” said Lily. “Sometimes people look at a nice person and think they are weak, and if they think they are weak then they think that they’re an easy target to pick on. They think if they pick on them, they’ll feel better about themselves.”

“That’s stupid. How could picking on someone make you feel better about yourself?”

“Do you feel better after putting snakes in Claude’s desk?”

Harry was quiet, and for a moment the radio came back in. Now a man was singing an old song alongside an acoustic guitar, wondering about lost days. Lily turned it down before the static could cut it off again.

“It was wrong of him to hurt Holly like that,” Harry finally said.

“It was wrong of you to put snakes in his desk,” Lily countered.

“Probably,” her son agreed. “But no one else was going to do anything, were they?”

They came across another small village, passing through right as the rain finally started. Lily changed the radio to a local news station, an announcer warning of flash floods in the foothills. Lily wasn’t particularly worried about their village or the mansion, which were firmly in the flatlands, but Harry watched the rain darkening the bare fields glumly. Sun was still lighting them in the distance, where the clouds broke off, but they were driving deeper into the storm. Lightning played far off ahead of them, and Lily sped up again. There was no one else out driving, in any case. She had no reason to go slowly.

It was times like this that the problems of raising her children among muggles became apparent. Driving from place to place was slow. It took forty minutes to get from the town to the village, and another fifteen out to the mansion. She couldn’t have shown up in town without her car, however, or shown up too quickly, without raising suspicions. All the same, she doubted anyone would notice if she were to apparate them to just outside the village, but then they would have no car to make the final stretch. Flooing was simply out of the question among muggles, and besides, while she felt safer in France than Britain, there was simply no telling who would be watching the network. She had cut the mansion off from it after the Halloween gala two years before, when she had so foolishly connected directly to the Ministry of Magic. Ministry aside, there were several others with means of accessing records that could breach the mansion’s security with a simple reversing charm—Dumbledore among them. It had been foolish to connect the mansion at all, let alone floo directly to the ministry. But what was done was done.

As the car slid past the first building of their village—the main granary—the sky had grown dark entirely. It was to be expected, of course, that the sky would darken earlier now that it was November, but it still made Lily nervous. She located the house of Hollis’ friend as quickly as she could, and checked her watch. There was still a half hour left in her potion. Leaving Harry to wait in the running car, she hurried up the steps to the door.

A girl about Hollis’ age opened the door. Lily blinked, but forced herself to smile. “ _You must be Martel.”_

 _“Who are you, then?”_ the girl challenged.

 _“Martel!”_ someone else called. The woman who Lily had expected to answer came into view: Martel’s grandmother, Adele. “ _Sorry about that, Ms. Jeannot. The girl clearly needs to learn her manners!”_

Martel stuck out her tongue.

 _“That’s quite alright,_ ” said Lily. _“However, I was wondering if my daughter had come by…?”_

 _“Holly?”_ Adele asked. The way she pronounced the name pulled the ‘y’ up strangely, making the name sound odd.

 _“She went home when it looked like it was going to rain,”_ Martel said. _“Mathis was going to walk her home, but she didn’t want him to, and we’re not supposed to—”_

 _“She went home about twenty minutes ago,”_ Adele said, cutting her off. _“Did you not drive by on your way down here?”_

 _“I just got in from town,”_ Lily explained, though all she really wanted to do was hurry off to find her daughter. The thought of the girl—the six-year-old little girl—walking home all alone made her nervous. _“James missed the bus. We hoped she had stayed here.”_

 _“Did he really put snakes in Claude’s desk?”_ the girl asked.

_“Martel!”_

Lily sighed, and crouched down to look at the girl at eye-level. _“He did, and he knows it wasn’t a good thing to do at all, Martel. He’ll apologize to Claude tomorrow, and he is in trouble.”_

 _“Claude deserved it,”_ the girl said with a shrug, and turned to disappear inside.

 _“Well,”_ said Lily, straightening up. _“I’d better hurry home, then.”_

 _“You don’t need anything, out there all alone in that mansion, do you, Ms. Jeannot?”_ Adele asked. She was not the brightest woman, and certainly did not have the broadest world view, having been born in this very village, but she never failed to offer Lily any help she could.

 _“Oh, we’re very good. Fixing up the place nicely.”_ Lily stepped away from the door and down the stairs, back into the lane to open the car door.

“ _Alright,”_ Adele called back. “ _But don’t hesitate to call, dear. Good afternoon!”_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you! Your comments are like bursts of accidental magic--I mean, encourage bursts of editing.


	5. An Old Road, Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, to about the same extent as last chapter, potential CW for bullying.

12.

 

“Where’s Holly?” Harry demanded as soon as his mother had her head through the door.

“Apparently she walked home alone,” Lily said, blinking a bit at her son’s ferocity. Of course, that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him, when it came to his sister. Though it was always apparent how dependent Holly was on her older brother, especially with the way she had moped when Harry had started school without her, anyone who looked hard enough could see he was just as dependent on her. A byproduct of his protective nature, surely. She wondered if that wasn’t the cause for him lashing out against this Claude boy, but pulled the car off down the main road without saying anything.

Harry was alert in his seat as they hit the bumpy dirt road that led to the Black manor they had come to live in. “Why didn’t she just stay put?” he moaned, when they had sped about five minute from the village. “She could have just stayed with Martel!”

“Yes. I’ll have to have a proper conversation with her about what to do when you’re not there—”

“There she is!” Harry exclaimed, cutting her off. He was already unbuttoning his seatbelt.

“Harry! Wait until we’re closer.”

The girl turned to face them when she heard the car approaching. She looked absolutely miserable. Her silky black hair was soaked, and her school clothes must have weighed twice as much as they would have normally. The moment Lily started to brake Harry threw open the passenger door and jumped out. He already had his coat off and was covering his sister as the door slammed behind them. Lily sighed and shifted the car into park. She could hear her son berating his sister, but by the time she had undone her own seatbelt he was already opening the back door for them.

“Well what would you have done?” Hollis was grumbling. “Hi, mum.”

“Hello Holly. Sorry you had to walk in the rain.”

“’s alright,” the girl piped, but her jaw was chattering in the cold. Harry closed the door and sat close to her, as though trying to pass along some of his body heat.

“Well,” said Lily, finding the knot in her stomach had eased some now that she could see her daughter was fine, merely wet and cold. “Let’s get you home and into something dry. I think cocoa is called for.”

Harry was glaring at her, for some reason—as though it were not his fault that his sister had been left on her own. She raised an eyebrow at him, and turned to drive the rest of the way to the manor. While she could remember what it was like at his age, she often found she could not understand what was going through her eight-year-old son’s head. He was too different from the way she was now, she supposed. Maybe if she were still the same person she had been, she would understand, but she was not.

They made their way inside, Harry carrying his and Hollis’ bags and Holly still bundled up in his coat, and she went to make a phone call. The real trouble of being disconnected from the floo was the amount of effort it took to communicate back to Britain. It was too far for Remus or Sirius to send a patronus, and she could not conjure one to reply anyways. Not that she tried, she simply knew. She would not be able to.

Eventually she had figured out how to connect Sirius and Remus up to the muggle phone lines. It had been difficult when they moved into Grimmauld Place following Walpurga Black’s sudden death, as the house simply did not exist for anyone who had not been let in by Sirius. The wards had taken some charming to work around, but nothing like the manor, which was an old property stained with ancient magic.

Sirius had told her the manor had been the family’s main property before they relocated to Britain, and after that barely anyone had used it. The only recent use he could think of was his brother’s graduation trip that he knew his parents and their then only son had set several months aside for. Beyond that, however, it had gone at least twenty years without use before that, and the magical plants that lived on the property had made it their home in every sense. It had delighted Sirius that she wanted to install muggle technology on the plot, and he had gladly assisted her research in to get the lines to work—or, rather, he hadn’t whined too loudly when Remus spent two weeks at the mansion to assist her in laying down the lines and their necessary charms.

It was Remus who picked up the phone, now. “Hello?”

“Hello, Remus,” she said. “How’s the sky?”

“Faring fine, but the wind’s blowing North.”

She relaxed. Of course she had no reason to suspect anyone else would be at the phone, but key phrases were a security precaution she had insisted on. “Sirius around?”

“No, not yet. He’ll be back around six, I think. Is something wrong?”

“Not really,” Lily said. She turned around to check the kitchen, and waved her wand to locate her children—both upstairs in their shared room, arguing, most likely. “Well,” she said, sure they could not eavesdrop on her. “Actually there is a bit of a situation.”

“No one’s in danger, I presume,” Remus said, after a missed beat.

“Of course not, or you would already know.”

“Good. Sirius would have a heart attack. What happened?”

She checked the door of the kitchen again, and decided to walk down the hall to her rooms. The door was warded so she could hear anyone moving around outside, but they would give her some privacy against her children, and she wasn’t sure she wanted them to hear this. “Harry had an incident at school.”

“Accidental magic?”

“I don’t think so.” She shut the door and sat at the foot of her bed. “No, he put snakes in another boy’s desk.”

There was another moment’s silence on the line. “Snakes?”

Lily laughed. “Yes. I do wonder if Sirius’ school stories haven’t got him associating snakes with bullying, the way he’s always on about Slytherins.”

“Really. We should probably get him to stop—it’s probably no good for Harry, having all these presumptions forced onto him before he’s even at Hogwarts.”

Lily hummed. She didn’t even want to think about Hogwarts—she still had a few years before she had to deal with the nightmare of trying to keep her son safe. Hogwarts, right in the hands of Dumbledore, not to mention all the dangerous things that seemed to find their way onto the grounds. Things that seemed to find their way into Sirius’ stories, and make her children fantasize over the school. Hollis had even tried to build the castle out of Legos—and her brother had built off of that, expanding it with great enthusiasm. Well, she pushed it from her mind: a trouble for another day.

“The thing is,” she said. “It wasn’t just one or two snakes. The teacher said thirty-three.”

“Merlin,” said Remus. “That must have been a sight. Whose desk was it?”

Lily sighed, and let herself fall back into her bed. She felt like a teenager, gossiping with a friend on the phone like this. Of course, when she was a teenager none of the friends she had wanted to talk to had had phones.

“Some resident bully, apparently,” she said. “It reminded me—”

“Of James as a boy?”

“Precisely,” she said. “And since he goes by James in school… well, if he’d just messed up his hair a bit he would have looked precisely like his father, defiantly angry for us having caught him.”

“How did they catch him?”

“Good question,” she said. But she could guess. “He probably turned himself in.”

“Well, there you go.”

“What?”

“You’re worried about him being too much like James was, I can tell. But you’re also guessing right off the bat that he turned himself in. He wouldn’t have done that—James, I mean. Half the thrill of the trouble we caused was knowing we had gotten away with it. Well, for James and Sirius, at least, and even I got caught up in it…”

“Actually,” she said. “It wasn’t James he reminded me of.”

“No?”

She sighed again. “This kid, he broke Hollis’ toy horse. The one Sirius gave her for her birthday, remember?”

“Sure.”

“Harry, getting revenge like that, it actually reminded me of _Severus._ ”

“Snape?” His voice was thickly incredulous.

“I know, I know. You four didn’t know him back then, so you probably just think of how he turned out,” she said. “But when we were actually friends, way back when—he was so protective of me he’d do just about anything to get revenge if someone was mean to me, and…”

“Oh,” said Remus. “So you’re worried that Harry’s too protective of Holly.”

“Well, no—I don’t know.”

“We _have_ been pushing for him to be protective of his sister. I mean, it is best for him to bond to someone else like her, since he can’t be around any other magical children. Even when you travel, there’s the language barrier, and the need to hide your identities—”

“I know that.” She rolled over onto her side in frustration, to watch the picture that sat alone on the wall of the bedroom. Sirius and Remus had given it to for Christmas, when they had moved in. It showed nothing more than water slipping back and forth over sand, but that it showed no matter the time of day or year. Now, with the rain outside, there were ripples in the water. “I want nothing more than for him to be close to his sister, Remus; you know that. They’ll need each other, when they grow up. But…”

“The good does not come without the bad.”

The children were coming down the stairs. Lily sighed and sat up. She caught her reflection in the window, clearer now that it was growing dark outside, and saw that her potion had almost worn off: her light freckles had separated out again. “They’re coming down for cocoa,” she told Remus.

“Should I tell Sirius to call later?”

She considered it.

“No, you two will be here the week after next, anyways,” she said. “Better for Harry to have some distance before Sirius comes in, I think.” Sirius was just as likely to laud her son’s revenge efforts as he was to respond in any other way.

“You going to make him scrub cauldrons again?”

“It’s a bit too cold out for de-gnoming.”

“Probably. Have a good night, Lily.”

“You too.”

She sat with the receiver dead in her hands, until there was a knock at her door. “Come in,” she called.

Harry stepped through the door. “Can you heat up the water?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, standing. Harry tilted his head, studying her as she came closer. “What is it?”

“You’re back to normal,” he said, and turned to go back into the kitchen.

“Mum,” Hollis said, as soon as she too came through the doorway. “Harry broke the rules at school!”

“Yes, he did,” she agreed.

“So is he going to get into trouble?”

Lily put the kettle of water and turned to regard her daughter. Hollis did not mean any vindication against her brother, it was clear: she was worried. She would try to hide it, of course; for a six-year-old she had an uncanny knack for trying to hide her feelings under brattish behavior, no doubt picked up from her brother. “Yes,” Lily answered. “He is in a lot of trouble. He’ll be scrubbing out my cauldrons until I think he’s understood. You understand why?”

“But it was my fault!”

Harry just sighed and climbed down off the counter, where he had been reaching for the mugs in the cupboard. “Tell her she’s being ridiculous, mum,” he said. “She thinks she’s somehow managed to turn me into some sort of—of—of miscreant.”

“Miscreant?” Lily echoed. Harry’s vocabulary was odd, as happened when one learned most of their words through reading. Severus had been the same way, but she shut down that train of thought before it could go further.

“Mum?” Harry said, slipping her mind back into the present. She blinked, and looked at Holly again. The girl’s eyes were puffy and red; she wondered if they hadn’t been all along.

“Of course it wasn’t your fault, Hols,” she said. “I hate to say it, but your brother has to take responsibility for his own mistakes. He has it in him to cause trouble, same as anyone else.”

Harry huffed, working his jaw in irritation, but set down the mugs and clambered onto the second stool at the kitchen island, next to his sister.

“But he only did it because of my—my—”

Now she really did cry. Harry reached out and set his hand on her wet hair, of all places, like she were some animal he could sooth by petting. Lily wondered that so fragile-hearted a child had tried to hide her pain from her mother the day before. A mother knew how to read her daughter’s upset, even if she couldn’t say what had put her out of balance without context.

“Holly, Claude is a git and he deserved it,” Harry said firmly.

Holly cried harder, biting her lip to hold back wailing.

“Harry is trying to say the blame lies on this _Claude_ boy and himself, not you, Hollis,” Lily said. The kettle behind her was on the verge of boiling, so she took it off the stove and poured water into the mugs. They were already waiting with cocoa powder; when had that happened? Harry must have fixed them.

“If I—I hadn’t had m—my horse—”

“Then you wouldn't have had your horse,” Lily said simply, cutting her daughter off. “You loved that horse, didn’t you? And Claude took that away. He caused you pain, and Harry responded, if immaturely. That’s the way it is, love. You’re a victim. You’re not to blame.”

“But Harry isn’t mean!” Holly cried. She finally let out a loud sob that pulled out the end of ‘mean’, like a word caught on the wind and carried away from her. Harry forced his stool to move under him so he could sit closer to his sister, pulling her into a hug. His eyes implored her, brow crinkling in his helplessness.

“Hols,” he said softly. “It isn’t your fault!”

Lily stepped around the island and knelt down next to Holly’s stool. Harry let go of his sister reluctantly, but his hand stayed on her shoulder. The girl’s tear-stained face looked down at Lily. Her dark grey eyes, much more suited to the girl’s face than Lily’s or Harry’s, glittered.

“Hollis,” Lily said gently. “Even the best people in the world have the ability to do bad things. What sets them apart is a feeling of remorse. Guilt. Knowing what they’ve done is wrong.”

 

  
13.  


“ _And so, what I did was wrong, and I am very sorry_ ,” the boy at the front of the classroom said.

Miss Lapointe studied his features carefully. She had come to realize, over the course of his public apology, that like his mother James’ eyes seemed somehow out of place on his face. They weren’t particularly ugly—even hidden behind the circular-framed glasses they were eyes that would have sat nicely, if only they weren’t on _his_ face. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was starting to realize that there were many things about the Jeannots you could not put a finger on.

She chalked it up to the fact that the Jeannots were from Britain and she had only left France once, on a brief trip to Germany. Even out here in the countryside, missing a link to the train system, most people had travelled around Europe at one point or another. But not her.

“ _Very well,”_ she said, when she realized the boy was staring at her expectantly. _“You may go back to your seat.”_ Claude, luckily, sat on the opposite side of the room, glaring daggers at his new enemy, or James would not have made it to his seat without being tripped. _“I expect you all have something to say about this, but it would be best if we put it aside. Of course James will be doing lines during yard time, but I would very much like the rest of us to move past this incident and on to better things. Maths, for example. If everyone would get out their workbooks…”_

She droned her way through the daily lesson without much thought, and let the students focus on their classwork while she watched from her desk. Claude and his friends kept looking up at her, clearly waiting for a good moment to pass notes, but she would not let them get away with trouble so easily. James worked quietly in his seat at the back, pausing every now and then to stare out the window.

So that was the sort of boy he was. The one always looking to another place, dreaming and waiting for something the rest of them would never know. She had tried, as a child, to understand her classmates who were that way, but she had always been focused in her studies, even if she hadn’t had a clear direction.

Outside, rain was dousing the grounds thoroughly. It was a matter of time before the entire dirt playfield turned to mud. The water ran down the windows, distorting the light filtering in onto the face of the boy she watched. He would follow a drop run down into a corner and turn back to his work, then back to the window. As long as he got his work done, she could say nothing against his lapses in concentration; for all she knew his mind was working away regardless of where his eyes sat. Once, he even caught her looking at him. His expression remained completely impassive as he looked back down to his page without acknowledging that moment’s connection.

Through his apology and now, she had not felt the boy had any true remorse for his actions. He had spoken eloquently, for a boy of his age, but his words sounded empty. But she could not get a read on this child, and there was any number of reasons why. He was from a family of Brits and she from France. He was lacking a father, and the father was reputed, at least among the staff members at the meeting that morning, to be a man of no good, although perhaps that was more a matter of speculation based on the boy’s obviously mixed race. But maybe it was something about the child himself; perhaps there was something inherently wrong with him. His eyes and the strangeness with the snakes (and the _chair)_ notwithstanding, she had come to realize over the last day that even after two months of class she knew next to nothing about this boy. She wouldn’t have known that his father was not in the picture, had it not been noted in his records. His marks, when she looked in her books, were just shy of perfect when it came to mathematics and literature, but he never seemed to engage. Class art projects resulted in mediocre childish work. His presentation style was to the point, as though he wanted nothing more than to sit down, like most of the children. He had no clear friendships with any of his classrooms, but until now had been on reasonably stable terms with all of them.

Miss Lapointe just about jumped out of her seat when the intercom broke through her musing.

“ _Attention, attention. Due to the severe weather, there will be no yard time today.”_

The children groaned. Miss Lapointe bit the side of her cheek to hold back her own response, which would have been less than mature. _“Settle down,”_ she urged the class instead. She glanced at the clock. The hour was nearly spent, and they would be having lunch soon. She stood and wrote three new problems on the board, and had them all write their answers on scrap paper. They were allowed to leave when they handed in their work.

James handed his over fourth. She analyzed his handwriting—scratchy where he had done his work but carefully neat where his answers were found. Though the attention to the specific presentation was odd, it would have been more of a warning had the whole page been so neat. As it was, the effort to make himself presentable suggested the boy had clarity towards the illegible nature of his writing, but did not consider it shameful that it showed, so long as he put in effort where it mattered most.

Perhaps she was overthinking this a bit much. She rubbed her brow and shuffled the papers together. The boy did not seem to be any sort of psychopath; he had merely been protecting his sister and doled out a poorly constructed vengeance. He had come forward, but not until it was severely inconvenient on his classmates that he stay quiet, so it couldn’t be for the attention.

She followed the last child out of the classroom and into the common area of the hall, where the students were gathering to eat. She quickly spotted her usual troublemakers: Claude and his friends were up on the walkway that circled the second floor and opened up to look down on the main floor. They sat with their feet dangling through the railing, faces in identical scowls. James she had to search for; he was tucked away in one of the window benches in the corner. To her surprise, he was not alone. She would have thought his delinquency would have estranged the boy from the rest of the class, but apparently not.

The two boys with him were Nicolas and Mathis, who themselves were not particularly close, so the trio seemed odd. Miss Lapointe kept an eye on them as she made her rounds through the room, and settled down with one of the other teachers on duty at a table close enough to the window to halfway hear the boys’ conversation.

Although he was not particularly out-going or well liked, Mathis’ voice was clear and loud, so she could hear his part of the conversation easily. “ _The point is,”_ he was saying, _“That you got back at Claude, and you’re the only one in our class who has even tried, so Nicolas figured he’d stick to you.”_

Whatever James said was much softer, but he did not look particularly happy. For some reason he kept looking out the window. Miss Lapointe looked out past him, but there was nothing but the rain and the next wing, where the lower forms were housed.

“ _W—well, I—”_ Nicolas squeaked. _“I th—th—think it was pretty cool, cool, what you d—did.”_

 _“Cool?”_ James demanded, louder now. _“It was not cool.”_

_“I—I meant—meant—”_

_“He meant standing up for your sister like that,”_ said Mathis. _“I mean, I heard all about what happened from Martel, and someone had to do something. I would have tried to get back at someone if they tried to hurt Martel. Maybe not that way, exactly, but that just goes to show that you are unique.”_

 _“Unique,”_ James said flatly. His voice was lost again as a group of girls started shrieking, and Miss Lapointe and the other teacher had to leave their seats to sort out an issue of a piece of flying lunch meat.

When she returned, the boys seemed to have come to some sort of agreement. Nicolas was sitting at the opposite end of the bench from James, and Mathis was cross-legged on the floor, and they were all eating their lunches. Miss Lapointe was troubled—or perhaps merely confused. The two had sought James out as what—a bodyguard from Claude? Yet Nicolas had pressed himself as far down the bench from James as possible, and his stammer was more pronounced than usual in his interactions with the boy. Mathis, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned with the whole situation, as he generally was when it did not involve football, but he was there nonetheless. Why?

“ _Well_ ,” said the other teacher, lowering herself back into her seat. “ _Look at that. Your trouble-maker seems to have gained a following.”_

“ _For better or worse,”_ Miss Lapointe said dryly. “ _I just hope they don’t start a—how to say—rivalry? With Claude and his, I mean.”_

“ _Oh, a bit of student rivalry is always good_.” The older teacher chuckled at Miss Lapointe’s incredulous face. Mrs. Canon had been teaching at the school for nearly twenty years. Miss Lapointe had, to her extreme relief, not been in the elderly woman’s class, but she had started school when Mrs. Canon had started her position, and the thought was bizarre. “ _Children are quite good at solving their own problems, I’ll have you know, Liz. Maybe if that poor boy has a friend in your snake-child he will grow a spine and stand up for himself. Claude’s group will either have to find new fodder or quit their trend.”_

“ _Or maybe I’ll have another incident on my hands, and maybe next time James won’t come forward_.”

“ _James_ ,” Mrs. Canon echoed. “ _Don’t be so quick to brand him a repeat offender. He seems like a nice enough child, just quiet. The quiet ones always have a bit of trouble finding their footing along the way.”_

 

 

14

 

 

“That cauldron’s not going to get done any time soon at that rate, Harry.”

Harry scowled, but put a bit more strength into his scrubbing. He _hated_ scrubbing cauldrons. The cleaning potion made his hands prune, and the sound of the steel-bristled scrub brush against caked pewter was horrible.

“Can’t you just do this with magic, mum?”

“You should always clean your cauldrons yourself. It’s the only way to be sure it is done properly, and keeps you familiar with the condition of the metal. You know that.”

“So clean it yourself,” he grumbled.

“Harry,” Lily chided, stepping out of the storage closet.

They were in the basement at the manor, a low-ceilinged stone room with windows near the ceiling, ground-level to the back walk. His mum had cleaned the place up when they had moved in, turning it into a functioning potions lab. She was a prolific brewer. Along one wall there were set-ups for eight cauldrons to be left for slow-brew, though usually only one or two were working. Now there were six, steaming and fogging up the windows. Harry supposed it didn’t matter—it was dark outside, late enough that Holly had gone to bed—but he would have liked them clear anyways. Or open, maybe. The entire room smelled strongly of mint—mugwort; Lily had made him bring some in from the greenhouse—and something else that was making his eyes water. Of course his mother wouldn’t open the window. Something could get in, and besides, the smells helped her focus. Or so she said, and That Was That.

“What did you even brew in this?” Harry asked, glaring at a particularly stubborn spot.

“It was another experiment. I’m mixing aging potion and some of my hair-changing formulas. I’m hoping that we can get Hollis to pass as a bit older, maybe a bit more Asian…”

He looked up, watching her pick up a silver knife and chopping a pile of leaves with a nearly mechanical speed. The leaves were from one of the plants he was not allowed to touch—she had set aside the purplish-blue flowers. “Are we going travelling again?”

“I think we’ll go to South America on hols,” Lily replied.

“South America?”

“Yes, there’s a group in Chile that—is there something wrong with South America?”

“No, I liked Brazil but… I thought we were going to spend Christmas with Siri and Rem.”

“Oh. We usually do that, don’t we? I think we’re due for a bit of a change.”

Her chopping stopped as she used the flat of her blade to transfer the leaves into the potion she was working on. Harry watched as she stirred—three times right, three times left, three right, until—

“Ow!” said Harry. He looked down at his hand. He’d been so intent on watching his mum’s work he hadn’t been paying attention to his own, and had hit his knuckle against one of the rough bits, and had a cut on his finger.

“Don’t suck on that,” his mum warned, and he aborted the movement he had been making to glare at her. She was still stirring, watching the potion very carefully while she added the flowers one by one, producing small poofs up silver steam each time.

“Well, what should I do, then?”

“You’re old enough—”

She got distracted when one of the clouds of steam went up higher than the others, marring her from view. Harry sighed. It was impossible to hold a conversation with his mother when she was brewing. He went into the attached loo and washed his hands, finding a plaster in the cabinet to wrap around the offended finger. When he came back out, Lily was floating the cauldron over to one of the empty stations. He went back to the cauldron he had been working and dumped half her flask of cleaning potion in, just to spite her. It hissed as it ate through the spot that had hurt his finger, and when he looked closely, he realized that it was starting to eat into the pewter. Quickly he started scrubbing again, hoping to stop it before it melted a hole.

“That’s enough, Harry,” Lily called after a few minutes. Most of the grime was gone, but Harry was pretty sure that half the metal was, too. He looked up nervously, but his mum was standing over a different cauldron now, a small silver one. “Come here and try this.”

Harry casually dumped the fluid sloshing around the cauldron onto the floor as he set it down, making the stones hiss, and hurried over. Lily held out a deep-bowled spoon with a thick blue potion on it. He grimaced at the sight—slimy, like polyjuice was, and that had a reputation for tasting horrible. “Do I have to?” he asked, but he took the spoon and tipped the potion into his mouth. It was sweet, but had the texture of the cookie dough Harry had tried before Remus had finished adding the oil, making his mouth feel dry.

He waited, but he didn’t feel anything different. His mum took back the spoon and handed him another. This potion he knew. Watery and red, it tasted a bit like vinegar. The change was much clearer—he began to grow, and there was the particular sensation of bones clicking into place that always came along with aging potion. She hadn’t given him much, but she brewed it strong, and it was enough that he now reached her shoulders. When his mum nodded thoughtfully and started taking notes onto one of her ever-present scrolls, Harry took it as permission to go back into the loo to look into the mirror.

A teenaged girl glared back at him. “I look ridiculous,” he called into the other room, pulling at the t-shirt that had been loose a minute before, now tight around his—her—no, he was still—his neck. And his _chest._ Well. He poked at the fleshy protrusions—then suddenly had the horrifying thought that he was looking like his _sister_ would in a few years. He grimaced, and forced himself to lean in a bit closer and focus on his face. The bones were a bit narrower than they usually were when he aged up, more similar to how his face was now. But he still looked like a boy that had just been thrown into a slightly more feminine body.

“Harry, get back in here.”

“Mum, this is a crap disguise,” he complained. He turned to go back in to the other room, and was suddenly glad he had been wearing his loose night things, because his _hips._ It was hard to walk straight, like that. He had been a girl before, but she’d never combined it with an aging potion before, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. If he was ever going to pass as a teenage girl, he’d have a lot to get used to, first.

“It does need some work,” Lily agreed.  She waved her wand and a measuring tape went flying off the counter to hover along side Harry as he walked, measuring every which way.

“Please tell me I’m not going to look like this while we’re in Chilly.”

“ _Chile._ And no, it’s not for now. I’m just making notes for when you’re older.”

“I thought you said it was pointless to make notes while I’m still growing.”

“Stretch your arms out. It won’t give us anything accurate, but at least a general idea. You know the plan.”

Harry rolled his eyes. The Plan was his mum’s way of justifying her odd pastime of making stashes of supplies around the world. Whenever they went on trips, she would find somewhere to supplies, Just In Case. If something did happen to her, Harry had no clue how he was supposed to get him and Holly to Hong Kong or Albania to get to a stash, let alone remember where it was.

Besides, it wouldn’t matter, in a few years. He would be at Hogwarts, so if something happened to his mum, he could take his sister to hide there. Sirius had told him that the Dark Git (as he not-so-affectionately called You-Know-Who) had never managed to directly attack Hogwarts, and that he was afraid of Dumbledore, so even if the headmaster was a Right Bastard, it was also a safe place to hide if it came down to it.

“Mum,” he said, ignoring the prodding of the tape measurer with his mind on Hogwarts. “Can’t we go back to London?”

“We’ll see Sirius and Remus soon enough,” she said. “Remember, they’ll be here in a few weeks, when Sirius has his time off.”

“I mean, can’t we _move_ back to London? Permanently?”

She looked up from her scroll, hand pausing. In the bright lighting she had rigged the lab with, her eyes were especially green. Harry envied them. If he looked really closely in a mirror, he swore he could see a bit of green around the edges of his irises, but mostly they were just a dull, dark grey, that made him look like a lifeless muggle doll. Even Holly’s eyes, nearly as dark as his, had more green. And her eyes looked normal, because she didn’t have to wear glasses like he did.

“Harry,” Lily said. “You know why we live here. London isn’t safe.”

“But I could have friends there,” he said. “Actual friends. And not your coworker’s stupid kids.”

“What’s wrong with Maria’s kids?”

“You should have seen the look they gave me when I said I’m going to Hogwarts. _Why go there when you could go to Beauxbaton’s? It is much better.”_

“Well, it is a fine school. I’ve considered sending you there, actually.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“No, I don’t like how their curriculum is structured. Honestly, it would be best if I just taught you myself.”

“Mum!”

She looked back down at her scroll, noting something, and Harry groaned. Homeschool? He wouldn’t put it past her.

“Mum, I want to go back to England. We can go to muggle school there, I don’t care, I just want to spend time with _someone_ my age! You know, like normal kids do? Someone not—not muggle.”

“You have your sister,” Lily said.

“She’s _six.”_

“And your friends at school.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Friends. Is that what they would be called? She couldn’t name one, in any case, and Harry wasn’t sure he could, either. He’d been close to Claude ( _Claude, who liked British movies and didn’t have a mum)_ for a while, when they first started school, but he couldn’t exactly invite Claude _(Claude, who laughed over Holly’s broken horse)_ back to the manor, and then after last summer Claude _(Claude, who screamed when he saw the snakes)_ had started acting mean. Harry hadn’t really gotten close to anyone after that.

“Look, Harry,” Lily said, setting aside her scroll at last. “Life’s never going to be easy for you. We have to be very careful, because there are people who would take advantage of you because of your name. But just because they don’t know about your magic doesn't mean they can’t be your friends. I had many friends before I went to Hogwarts, and none of them knew about my magic.”

“Yeah? Well at least your friends knew your _name.”_

Lily sighed, checking her watch. “I think it’s time for bed. Tomorrow I’ll have you scrub down the work bench—it’s been getting sandy recently.”

Harry groaned again. The bench looked fine to him, but he wasn’t sure what she meant by sandy, either, so maybe it wasn’t. “Aren’t you going to change me back?”

“Hm?” She looked up. “Oh, it should wear off in a few hours. It doesn't really matter, you’ll be asleep anyways.”

 

  
15

 

While the other children remained in the common areas, and the teachers who had taken their lunch breaks while the children ate returning with indoor games, Miss Lapointe returned to the classroom with James. She sat him in the front row, at another child’s desk, and write one line over and over again: _I am not to respond to bullying with bullying._ He wrote the whole period, until the bell rang and the students came back in, and she took his page and had him return to his seat.

The handwriting, she noticed as she glanced over it while waiting for the children to get settled, was the same neat print all the way through. No scribbling. She wondered what a psychologist would say about that. She set the paper aside, and tried to focus on her class.

As the week went on, the rain let up, and the other children were let back out into the yard for play time. Each day the boy’s handwriting started out that same, careful hand. By halfway through Friday, however, his script had slanted horribly, and he was writing in jerky movements and had to go back to correct words.

“ _Mr. Jeannot_ ,” she said, when the yard time was halfway through already. “W _hy on earth are you writing so messily?”_

“ _My hand hurts, Miss_ ,” he said simply, and went on writing.

Miss Lapointe sighed and looked out the window. The sounds of children at play, laughter and shrieks and thuds of footballs against chain-link fences drifted through. It was sunny out, though most of the children ran around with scarves trailing out behind them like insect wings.

“ _That's enough_ ,” she found herself saying. She looked back down at James, who stared back with his mouth half-open. “ _Has the point set in?”_

 _“Yes, Miss_ ,” he said. Of course, what else would he say?

 _“Put on your jacket and go run around outside,”_ she said, picking up his paper. _“You look like you could use some muscle on you.”_

As the boy hurried to the cloakroom, glancing at her like he expected the teacher to change her mind, Miss Lapointe sat down at her desk and pensively watched the children at play. She had not been planning to release the boy to yard time until the following week, but for some reason the sight of his silent writing day after day seemed to clash too harshly with the clamor from outside.

As she watched the grounds, the room suddenly felt very stuffy, and though it was November and quite cold outside she opened a window to reach fresher air. She stood, feeling the sting of the dry air against her cheeks for a minute, watching without really seeing, as she had before, and it seemed like several long minutes had passed when she turned away. The sound of the cloakroom door shuddered the walls, drew her back into herself, and she rubbed her eyes. She had not been sleeping well. She must simply have been tired—yes, she would go to the staff room, and pick up some coffee. She made to leave, and turned off the lights, but a voice stopped her from opening the door.

_“So, she let you out?”_

The voice was unmistakably Claude’s, and clearly very close.

_“What’s it to you?”_

That was James, no doubt. Without turning on the light, Miss Lapointe crept closer to the windows.

_“I’m thinking she let you out too soon.”_

_“You’re thinking? Congratulations. That must be difficult. No wonder you’re lurking around the door, you might even be ready to go into the classroom and pay attention for once.”_

_“Shut up, Jeannot!”_

She couldn’t see the boys directly without moving in view of the windows, but one of the metal frames reflected the children clearly. It was James, alone, of course, having just come out of the cloak room, facing Claude and his two friends, Gabriel and Lucas.

She considered her options. The responsible thing to do would be to go outside and stop the situation before anything happened. On the other hand, James’ and Mrs. Jeannot’s words of how little she had done to stop Claude echoed in her ears, as they had been every night. James was clearly willing to be involved directly, and she had faith that she could act quickly enough if the situation got _physical._ The window was already open, after all, and she was young enough that she could get away with jumping out.

_“What do you want, Claude?”_

_“I want you to admit to what you did.”_

_“What? Put snakes in your desk? If you hadn’t noticed, I did admit to that. And apologize,_ very _publicly.”_

One of Claude’s friends—Lucas—grabbed the larger boy’s arm before he could charge forward. In the reflection, James did not move at all. Was he really so confident? Claude was several centimeters taller than he—or was it just bravado?

 _“What are you going to do?_ ” he asked. _“Punch me right here in front of the classroom?”_

_“It would serve you right!”_

_“Well, go on then. Do it. If you’re not too afraid. I might, I don’t know, hiss at you.”_

The sound the boy made then was certainly snake-like. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought there was one of the creatures nearby. But it was just the boy, that strange boy. She swallowed her unease.

Another figure ran past the windows, so quickly that Miss Lapointe barely had time to press herself against the wall to hold her cover. Nicolas’ back filled most of the narrow reflection, and Mathis ran by a moment later. Though not prone to such things, Miss Lapointe swore under her breath. If this broke into a fight between all six of these boys, she wouldn’t be able to get them apart so easily. She straightened up and prepared to move, but then remembered Mrs. Canon’s words— _children are quite good at solving their own problems, I’ll have you know, Liz._

Before she could make up her mind, Nicolas spoke, through his gasps for air. _“Leave him alone!”_

Claude’s other friend, Gabriel, laughed. _“What are you going to do,_ Piggy? _Squeal for help?”_

_“I mean it!”_

Miss Lapointe realized suddenly what was happening. Nicolas, shy, sweet, and vulnerable Nicolas, was standing up to his tormenters without so much as a stutter.

 _“Yeah,_ ” said Mathis. _“Leave him alone. You think you’re so big and brave, but look at you. Trying to scare James while he’s all on his own? Trying to insult Nicolas? You’re just three idiots, and now there’s three of us, too. Leave James alone.”_

There was a moment of silence, with Lucas’ hand tightening on Claude’s arm and Gabriel trying to make himself look bigger, and for the barest second Miss Lapointe’s gut dropped in fear that arms were about to start swinging—

—but then Claude laughed. His friends stared, then started laughing with him; fake, nervous tones.

 _“Look,_ Piggy _and_ Piss-Pants _are here to back up J—”_ Claude paused. _“To back up_ Prat.”

It struck Miss Lapointe as odd that those were the words Claude knew, of the whole of English. Piggy, Piss-Pants, Prat. Why the boy had chosen his insults in English, when the boy they stood against was well-known as being a Brit—

“Piggy _and_ Piss-Pants _and_ Pat!” Gabriel echoed gleefully.

“‘Prat’ _you idiot,”_ Claude said.

“Piggy _and_ Piss-Pants _and_ Prat!” said Lucas.

They all laughed, and while they laughed, turned and fled. She supposed they thought their laughter covered up their cowing retreat. Then again, she supposed she and the three other boys were the only witnesses to their escape. She let out a long breath of relief.

 _“Are you alright, James?”_ Mathis asked.

_“Yes, I’m fine. I—thanks.”_

_“N—no prob—b—blem. Th—they shouldn’t, shouldn’t call you_ Pat.”

 _“_ Prat,” James corrected automatically, but in the reflection he looked put-off. _“He shouldn’t call you_ Piggy.”

_“I—I don’t know, know, know what it—t—t m—means.”_

_“_ Piggy? _You know, uh, pig.”_ He paused. _“But it’s—it’s from a book I read. When we first started the year, I…”_

 _“A book?”_ Mathis asked.

 _“Yeah._ Lord of the Flies— _how do you say, His Majesty of the Flies? My uncle left it around. Mum was mad I picked it up, but I’ll read anything.”_

 _“Who—who’s_ Piggy, _then?”_ asked Nicolas.

James ran his fingers through his fringe, patting it down. _“A fat, what’s the word,_ asthmatic _, kid. He dies at the end.”_

_“O—oh.”_

_“I liked him,”_ James said firmly. _“He had glasses and was almost blind without them. And he was the most logical, if a bit, uh, stupid.”_

_“Ummmmmmm.”_

_“What about_ Piss-Pants?” Mathis asked. _“Did you suggest that one, too?”_

 _“No,”_ said James quietly. _“That was all Claude. You know his dad…”_

They all looked at each other a bit, and shrugged whatever he was implying off. If Miss Lapointe were not their teacher, she would want to shrug it off, too. As it was, her mind was racing through options, from as vile as abuse to as harmless as watching British television.”

 _“So why was it just you?”_ Mathis asked. _“And shouldn’t you be doing lines, anyways?”_

_“Lapointe said I could leave.”_

_“Y—you were really b—b—brave, standing up to—to—to all th—three of th—them like th—that.”_

_“Brave?”_ James echoed. _“Are you kidding me? Look, my hand’s still shaking.”_

 _“You have to be scared to be brave, it’s the definition,”_ Mathis pointed out. _“But I don’t know if you were brave or just stupid. Shouldn’t you have, oh, run? Or shouted for help? If Claude had punched you…”_

Miss Lapointe swore that for a moment James’ eyes flickered to the same reflection that she was watching. It couldn’t be, though—or it could, but she wouldn’t have been able to tell; the reflection was too small. _“I’ll tell you later,”_ he said, and turned towards the field, words far from the ears of their hidden teacher.

She was a grown woman, but for some reason Miss Lapointe’s heart was pounding against her chest, and she felt curiously as though she were again a child, eavesdropping on adult conversations that the children were not supposed to hear. She let her self sink into the wall, and for a moment, had the brief and strange idea that it would open up and swallow her whole.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments and kudos, everyone! It's interesting to hear how you guys feel about different characters. Until next time...


	6. Entr'acte I

16.

 

Remus Lupin woke up on the 24th of November, 1989, and after a moment wished he had simply stayed asleep.

The sheets, on the bright side, were glorious. He closed his eyes again and focused on the softness, forgiving Sirius for the expense. Puffskein wool woven with murtlap silk—a highly indulgent purchase that Sirius had ordered without a second thought. _Don’t be such a muddy wand, Moony. If I’m going to sleep on it, I want it to be soft._ It was not without guilt that Remus now sank into the same sheets, knowing they cost more than he had made in the last month, but all the same, his skin was aching, _raw_ , and the sheets were the first he had not torn away from his healing skin in many years.

He remembered, as always, the hospital wing. When he was younger, he always woke with the memory of the first painful transformation fresh in his mind, but that had changed at Hogwarts. One morning he had woken up wrapped around a warm, soft body, and opened his eyes to see the black fur of the large dog Sirius’ animagus form had proven to be. Peter was asleep in one chair, and James was sitting awake with his wand tapping against his knee. The dog Sirius’ body heat had been uncomfortable, and the weight and scratchiness of his fur painful, but for some reason he had not been able to move Sirius off, and had somehow fallen back to sleep squeezed between the dog and the mattress. When he had awoken again, he had been alone, and he had never asked his friends to clarify whether or not they had actually been there, but somehow the memory, real or not, had been enough to keep Remus on this side of sanity so far.

Downstairs, the phone rang.

He could hear Sirius answer it, and his words through the walls of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, were a tenor hum. There was a brief pause, then footsteps on the stairs, and Remus forced his protesting limbs to slide back up the pillows, until he was in something of an upright position. Sirius came through the doors.

“Moony,” he said in surprise, and immediately began to fuss. Remus knew that Sirius would always fuss, especially the morning after the Night. “How are you feeling?” Sirius asked. He rushed over. “Here—let me—you shouldn’t be moving around just yet.”

“Sirius,” said Remus, ignoring the way his skin burned where Sirius touched it, forcing himself to lean forward so Sirius could add in another pillow. His voice rasped out of his throat as though it were being scraped along a gravel path. “Is that my dad on the phone?”

“You don’t _have_ to speak with him, you know.”

“Sirius. Please?”

Sirius sighed and held out the handheld, but did not let go when Remus took it. Remus looked up at him and waited, watching the way Sirius’ jaw shifted as his grey eyes scanned Remus’ face. “I’ll bring you tea,” he said, letting go at last, and followed the extended cord back out the door.

“Hello?” Remus said when his shaking arm brought the phone up to his ear.

“ _Remus_?”

“Hi, dad.” Remus leaned back into the pillows. “How are you?”

“ _Remus, you—fine. I’m fine_.”

“How’s Auckland?”

“Warm. It’s summer here.”

“Did the glamrams give birth?”

“Yes. There’s three healthy lambs tearing up my garden. Terrors.”

“Glad to hear—”

The words caught in his throat and he coughed, making his body shudder into the mattress.

“ _Remus_?”

“Yes?”

There was a moment’s silence on the line, then Lyall cleared his throat. “ _Your aunt called_.”

“Felicity?”

“ _Yes. She lost her husband, you know. She asked after you_.”

“What did you…?”

“ _I said you were in London, looking for a job.”_

“Oh.”

The line pulled—Sirius must have hit it—and soon after the man came through the doorway, a tea tray levitated in front of him. Remus smiled weakly as Sirius poured him a cup, mixing in cream and three spoons of sugar. He tried to imagine Sirius doing something like that back when they were in school, and had to control himself not to laugh. “Thank you.”

“ _What?”_

“Sirius made tea.”

 _“Oh.”_ Another bit of silence as Sirius made his own cup and settled into an armchair by the window wall. With a flick of his wand the section of curtains by his chair opened up, revealing a bit of forest for Sirius to stare out into. Remus knew that Sirius would always be a difficult topic with his father. The first time he had told Lyall he thought he was in love had also been the last time they directly spoke of the matter.

_“How is the potion working?”_

“Still the same. Lily’s trying to work around the nerve damage.”

_“Has she improved it at all?”_

“It’s…” He looked at his hand, shaking the tea. “Coming along.”

_“She’s a brilliant girl.”_

“Yes.”

_“She’ll figure it out.”_

“Probably.”

_“Remus, I’m—”_

Remus took a deep breath, ignoring the way his chest protested the expansion.

_“You should never have had to deal with any of this.”_

“Dad. You can’t keep blaming yourself.” Across the room, Sirius stood from his seat. Remus kept his eyes on his tea.

_“If I hadn’t…”_

“It’s not your fault,” Remus said. “Isn’t it getting late there?”

_“Remus—”_

“Get some sleep, dad.”

“ _Alright. Good—good morning.”_

“Goodnight.”

The line went dead just as Sirius reached the bed, and he handed over the phone without a word, ending the conversation the same way it always did. Sirius set it on the table and sat down on the edge of the bed, guiding the shaking hand and cup of tea up to Remus’ lips. There would be potions in the tea, Remus knew, but he was too tired to protest.

“Are you okay?” he asked instead. “I seem to remember you running into a tree…”

“Oy,” Sirius grunted. “Am _I_ okay?”

“I think we’re both generally aware of my state,” Remus said, as lightly as he could muster. He took another sip of the tea before Sirius could make him, tasting the bitter tones of willow tincture in the potion brewed with the tea, even through the sugar. Already he was loosing track of the pain in his ribs. He set the cup down next to the phone and closed his eyes for a moment, taking stock of his body.

“Kreacher is making breakfast,” said Sirius. “So I think I’ll floo over to Bogle’s Bake and pick us up something.”

“I’m sure whatever he makes will be fine.”

“I already sent an order.”

Remus opened his eyes to study out the window. The choice for it to look out on a forest had been a good one, he thought. Even on a dismal day like this, with rain creeping through in patches in the foliage, it was a relaxing sight that distracted from the negative energy in Grimmauld Place they were still struggling to remove.

Sirius leaned in close, making Remus freeze, but it was for nothing more than a light kiss on the cheek. Remus swallowed his uncertainty and offered what he hoped was a passing smile as Sirius stood up. “Drink your tea,” Sirius said. “And try to rest. If you’re asleep I won’t wake you up. You look like you could use it. The hung-over rocker look doesn’t suit you, Moony.”

“Be sure to leave a tip,” Remus said. “You always order so much, it must be a hassle.”

“They’re _happy_ to get big orders. It’s how they stay in business.”

“Sirius.”

“I _know,_ Moony.  Ten percent. Bloody yank.”

Remus sighed, but Sirius’s footsteps on the stairs were already drifting through the open door. He had left the phone on the table, so the curling cord once again shook before it suddenly zoomed out of the room, sailing back to its dock down below.

 

When Sirius returned, not ten minutes later, the teacup was empty, but Remus was not asleep. Shaking fingers were struggling with shirt buttons and he was leaned against the armchair to stay upright, but Remus had gotten out of bed and nearly dressed.

“Moony, you stubborn idiot,” Sirius said, stepping forward to fix up the last few buttons. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I’m _fine.”_

“You’re hardly on your feet.”

“Sirius, if we’re going to see the kids today, I can’t exactly stay in bed.”

“We don’t have to go today, you know.”

“You’ve only got the week off, and don’t tell me you haven’t been looking forward to this all month. You’ve bought them three presents each, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but they’re not going to be here for Christmas, and—”

Remus stepped back out of Sirius’ reach and retrieved his coat from the top of the dresser. “Did you get breakfast?” he asked, running his hands over the soft fabric.

“Yeah. It’s in the kitchen.”

“Okay. Lets eat,” he said, and started to walk, focusing on making his body remember it knew how.

When the world slipped out from under him, it was not because he fell, but Sirius sweeping him up into his arms. It _hurt._ Normally he could handle Sirius’ tendency for roughhousing, but so soon after the Night, his gentle grip was like being held with a snake curled tightly around his body, constricting into bruises. Sirius did not seem to notice, hurrying towards the stairs, the look of purpose on his face gleaming as it always did when he found something he could do to _help._ Remus grit his teeth, and wished he could let him keep that feeling, but—

“Sirius. Put me down.”

Each bump of stairs was like being kicked by a horse.

“Really, Moony?”

_Bump._

“Look at you, you’re practically grey.”

 _Bump._ Remus felt his chest tightening, like he was going to puke, but all he’d had was the tea—

“Sirius.”

“You shouldn’t be on your feet.”

“You’re going to fall and hit your head and—”

“Sirius, _please.”_

He squeezed his eyes shut at the last step, and then they halted entirely. For the moment, it was easier to breathe, to force his throat to open and let in the gasps of air.

A whisper: _“Moony?”_

The world stopped closing in on him. He forced his eyes back open. Sirius looked, in a word, terrified. Automatically, Remus tried to smile, though smiling was the last thing he wanted to do. “Put me down,” he whispered back.

The gentleness with which Sirius eased him down was lost as Remus sagged into the railing. There was only one more flight of stairs left, he saw. If he took it slow—

His arm shot out before he even processed Sirius reaching out to help him upright, and the man froze. Sirius’ dark curls hung around his face with a certain weight, as though he had been out in the rain, and his grey eyes were frozen open wider than they had been in years.

He tried to smile again, ignoring the way his cheeks protested the extra effort. “Just… let me do it. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sirius echoed. He paused. “I could levitate you.”

Remus swallowed the urge to balk. “Could you heat up more tea?” he compromised. Sirius, however, did not take the peace offering as it was worth. Remus could see the way concern worked itself into the creases in Sirius’ brow. “The Earl Grey would be lovely,” he prompted, hoping that Sirius would do anything, just move.

Sirius nodded, and practically ran down the stairs. There was a youthful bounce in his quick steps that Remus envied, as right now he felt closer to eighty than twenty-eight. But Sirius paused on the landing. “It’s worse this time, isn’t it?” he asked, not turning around.

Remus took as deep a breath as he could. “Yes.”

“Are you going to tell Lily?”

Remus didn’t know. On the one hand, she could not fix the potion if she did not know about the change. On the other, she had two children, a job, and her political efforts to deal with already. He could just tell her the potion had behave the same as usual, and she could continue to try new brewing methods without devoting too much time to worrying over him.

Sirius translated his silence and stepped into the kitchen, leaving Remus to struggle with the stairs. He managed the first, then the second, before he had to stop and sit on the dusty wood, easing himself down bit by bit. The nerve potion was stopping his skin from burning, but it made his limbs feel like bruised rubber. Pulling himself up from the last step made the hall spin, but he let his feet carry him into the kitchen to sink into the first chair, which Sirius had already pulled from the table and set a steaming cup of tea in front of.

“I’ll call Lily,” Sirius said as he started pulling pastries from the familiar wire basket brought back from the bakery. “We’ll go over tomorrow, instead.”

Remus traced the silver lining of the edge of the teacup with one finger. It was one of the ones he had reclaimed from his mother’s collection when Lyall made his move to New Zealand permanent. It was his favorite, really—the silver seeped down from the edges in cracks in the porcelain, holding it together, like the maker had mimed _kintsugi_ attempting to recover something that had been broken beyond what anyone else would have thought worth saving.

“I’ll be fine by this evening, Sirius,” he said.

“Eat something.”

“Sirius.”

The man’s jaw worked. “Tonight, then,” he allowed at last, seeing that Remus would not be moved. “But we’ll go over late, when the kids are about asleep.”

Remus lifted the cup, twisting it for inspection. It was one of the few things he had brought to Sirius’ family home, and he worried about it in the care of Kreacher. The old house elf was thoroughly unpleasant when it came to him, both for the ill luck of being a half-blood and the fate of being a werewolf. But for the risk of leaving something so precious in the spiteful elf’s path, it was still a relief to have a piece of home with him.

“We should fix up this room next,” he said, taking a sip of the tea and reaching for a sausage roll. “Think we can afford a skylight?”

Sirius studied the dusty cast-iron chandelier. “If I can tear that out of the ceiling? Moony, I’d let you turn this place into a greenhouse.”

 

  
17.

 

Harry and Holly sat on the front porch, feet dangling between the railing posts. The cups of hot cocoa their mother had made them before she left were empty, sitting on the ground beside them, and Holly yawned for the twelfth time.

“You don’t think something happened to them?” she asked her brother. “Mum always says it’s a pain to drive in the dark…”

“They’re fine, Hols. Remember how long it takes to use the international floo? They probably just got stuck in line.”

The light from the front hall was just enough for Harry to read by, if he held his book up high enough, but his eyes had gotten tired and he had taken off his glasses, turning the night into a dark blur. He wrapped the blanket they shared tighter around himself, glad that it was not raining or windy, just cold.

“Harry?”

“What?”

“How’d you get the snakes into Claude’s desk?”

Harry smiled. In the aftermath of his revenge, that had been the question around the school. He’d heard various stories of what happened. His favorite was the one where he’d not only put in the thirty-three grass snakes, but somehow also filled Claude’s bag with a python. He was only surprised that it had taken Holly this long to ask, although the whole incident was a bit of a touchy subject for her.

“Have you told mum about my magic?” he asked.

“No. Did you do it with magic? Because if you did, I’m telling mum. We’re not supposed—”

“I didn’t use magic, I just talked.”

“Talked?”

Harry stretched out his arms and put his glasses back on, leaning back to look up at the stars. “I’ll show you if you keep it secret.”

“From mum?”

“Yes, from mum.”

“You already said you did it by talking. I bet I could tell that to mum and she’d know exactly what it means.”

“Nope,” Harry said. “I don’t think she’d know. And if you don’t promise you won’t ever know either.”

“Harry!”

“It’s up to you.”

“That’s mean!”

“How is that mean?”

“Because you won’t _tell.”_

“I just said I would. Just promise not to tell mum. It’ll be another layer to the game. You know, like I don’t tell people I’m Harry, and I don’t tell people we’re magical. This will be your second secret.”

“But I already don’t tell people we’re magical, too.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Okay, I don’t tell people I’m famous, either. Your third secret.”

“Fine.”

“You promise?”

_“Cross my heart, hope to die…”_

“Don’t let mum hear you say that,” he said, letting the blanket fall off his shoulders as he stood, offering his sister a hand up. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just into the grass.”

They stepped down off the porch, standing just at the edge of the stone walk that ran around the mansion. Harry squatted down and leaned forward, but paused and glanced at his sister. She was distracting—he’d never done this with someone else around. He turned back to the grass.

“Come here,” he said, hoping.

“I’m right here,” said Holly impatiently. “Are you going to show me or not?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, and focused on the memory of the snakes from the schoolyard. They had been quite peeved at him, even though he had explained what he was doing and had even brought them a bag full of crickets he had caught, and they hadn’t said a word before they went into hibernation. He tried to remember exactly what he had said to them, and repeated it now, and was pleased to feel the words stretching out on his tongue.

“Harry?” Holly said a few moments later. He opened his eyes, but was distracted by a quiet voice.

_Hello again, speaker._

Holly squeaked and jumped back onto the step, but Harry smiled at the sound. “Come here,” he told Holly, standing to follow the sound, but she frowned at him, and it occurred that he might still be speaking like a snake. He frowned, and focused on her face. “Can you not understand me? Does it not sound like English?”

“I think I—kind of. Say it again.”

He sighed. “Let’s find the snake,” he said. “It’ll be easier.”

She took a nervous step towards him, and Harry turned, leading the way around the corner of the mansion. “Snake?” he called out, hoping it sounded right.

_Down here, speaker._

They found the snake curled up by the window of Lily’s potions lab, enjoying the steam. Harry wrinkled his nose.

_What is speaker doing out in the dark?_

“We’re waiting for our mother to get home,” he said. He looked up at Holly, whose face was all scrunched up.

“Something about mum?” she guessed. Harry nodded, and grinned.

_Who is the other big one?_

“That’s my stupid sister,” he told the snake. She frowned again, but apparently did not understand enough to piece together the insult. “I think maybe she can understand us, a bit.”

_Why is your egg-mate so small?_

“She’s younger than me.”

Holly blinked in surprise. “I’m younger than you?” she echoed, in English.

Harry smiled wider. “Can you say something?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if it were in Snake-Speak or English, but she seemed to get the idea, because she tilted her head and chewed on her lip, then shook her head.

“I don’t think so.”

_Did speaker need something?_

“I just wanted to show my sister speaking,” Harry replied. The snake shifted, coiling into itself a bit more. “Aren’t you supposed to be hibernating?”

_The long sleep? Soon, soon. The grasshoppers are old and easy to catch, and it is still warm in this rock-place._

Harry frowned. “I don’t know if you should be sleeping there. It’s where all of mum’s—”

Suddenly Holly shrieked. “Harry!” she shouted. “It’s the car!”

“Holly, wait!” Harry said. He turned back down to the snake. “Sorry, I think my mother is home.”

_Are you going to eat your egg-mate?_

“No, she’s my sister, of course I’m not going to eat her,” he said, scandalized.

_If you wait too long, it will be too big._

“Ugh,” said Harry. “Goodnight. I hope you catch lots of grasshoppers.”

He turned and ran after his sister, rounding the corner of the mansion just as the car headlights turned off. It wasn’t safe to run through the long grass in the dark, but he did so anyways, hurrying to the gate as Sirius got out of the car and swung Holly up into his arms.

“Hey-a Holly!” the man said. Even in the near dark Harry could see his godfather grin before he crashed into the man’s legs. “Woah, Harry!” The hand that wasn’t holding up Holly messed up his hair. Harry was too happy to care. “How’s it, you little scoundrel?”

“Hi Siri!” he said, looking up when the hand came off his head and his godfather started tickling Holly’s side. He wisely took a step back before his sister could start kicking, and looked around for Remus.

He found Lily first, as she shut the door. “Harry,” she said sternly. “You were supposed to make sure Holly went to sleep if we weren’t back by nine.”

Harry frowned. “She said it was unfair, and she’s not tired, anyways,” he said. “And you know she doesn’t listen to me. Where’s Rem?”

Lily just sighed and opened the back door, helping Remus out of the car. Even in the dark he looked exhausted, but smiled. “Hi, Harry,” he said. Harry hurried around to give his uncle a quick hug, peering curiously up into his worn face.

“Are you sick again, Rem?”

“I think it’s mostly passed. Good to see you, Harry. I think you’ve grown about a head.”

Harry giggled—he’d last seen his uncle in August, when they’d stayed overnight in London after their trip to Salem. “Harry,” Lily cut him off. “Would you take Remus’ bag, please?”

“I can get them, Lily—”

“Don’t be silly, Remus. Harry?”

“Yes, mum,” he said, taking the shabby briefcase from his uncle. There was probably the whole week’s worth of clothing in there, enchanted down to size, and who knows what else. He looked up at Remus again. “Do you have any books for me?”

Remus laughed. “I’m sure there’s a story or two, somewhere in there,” he said. “But you know what I could use? A cup of tea.”

“So late?” Lily asked, but Harry grinned and ran back towards the house. He dropped Remus’ bag at the foot of the stairs, then ran back out to collect his book and the mugs, which he dumped unceremoniously on the kitchen island so he could climb up onto the counter to fetch clean mugs and tea. When he got back down, Sirius was already behind him, putting Holly on one of the stools, and Harry wasted no time running back around to give his godfather a proper hug.

This time, it was Harry’s turn to be swept off his feet, and he giggled as he swung his arms around Sirius’ neck. “I hear you’ve been getting into trouble, little rascal,” Sirius said, though he kept his voice down. Harry tucked his head into his Uncle’s neck, hiding his pink face. Sirius laughed. “Good for you!”

“Don’t encourage him, Sirius,” Lily said as she stepped in. Harry looked up in time to see his sister jump down off her stool and give their other uncle, just behind their mum, a hug, and didn’t miss the way Remus seemed to flinch, even as he smiled.

“You’re getting big too, aren’t you, Hollis? Soon you’ll be taller than me!”

“Well, when that happens, she can start missing bedtime. Yes, Hollis. Now.”

“But _mum!_ ” Holly whined, looking up at her. “Presents!”

Lily gave Sirius an exasperated look, as if to say, _this is your fault, you know._ “If you go to bed now, you can have presents in the morning.”

“But I want them _now!”_

“Then you can wait until next Sunday, when your uncles are leaving.”

Holly squeaked, and turned and ran past Remus towards the stairs. Sirius laughed at the sound of her footsteps pounding up the stairs, and Lily followed her daughter out of the room. Sirius put Harry on the stool Holly had abandoned. “Where’s the tea pot, then?” he asked. Harry pointed to the cupboard above the stove. Even standing on the counter he couldn’t reach it, so his mum kept it up there so he wouldn’t try to boil water without her around. Sirius summoned it with a wave of his wand, and filled it with water from the sink, while Remus picked up his book from the island.

“ _Mossflower_ again, Harry?”

Harry shrugged. “It’s really good,” he said. “Do you know if the next one is out yet?”

“Not yet, I checked at the store. I’d give you your _books_ , but I think your mum would yell at me.”

“Besides, you should be resting,” Sirius cut in. “You said you would.”

“Tea, Sirius…”

“We’ll bring it up to you. Go on. You promised.”

Remus sighed, but he set the book back down and gave Harry a smile before turning to lumber out of the kitchen. Harry watched soundlessly as his uncle slowly made his way up the stairs, pausing briefly when Lily’s blue socks came into view. Harry turned back around.

“Rem’s really sick, isn’t he,” he said, looking to Sirius for answers.

“He’s just tired, kid. It’s a long trip over, not to mention all that driving.”

“How far did you have to drive?”

“From the nearest train station. Your mum’s very thorough about this whole muggle thing.”

“Well, everyone in the village knows exactly who comes and goes. It would be weird if you just suddenly appeared.”

Sirius’s shoulder’s fell, and his eyebrows pinched up, like a worried golden retriever. “You sound like her. Merlin, Harry, have you been infected with it?”

“With what?” Lily asked, sweeping into the room. “It the tea ready?”

Sirius waved his wand, muttering something, and the kettle whistled. “Now it is.”

“Good,” she said, handing over a vial. “Put that in. It will help him sleep.”

“Don’t you have anymore of the…?”

“He’s had too much already,” she answered, running her hand through her hair to pull it away from her face. “That’s supposed to be a baseline, not as-needed.”

“Well, it wasn’t enough, and I didn’t know what else…”

“That’s why you call, Sirius. This time it was—” Lily cut herself off, and looked over at Harry with a sigh. “Harry, love, take Remus his tea, will you? And this.”

Harry hopped off his stool, taking the single white pill his mother handed him. “What’s that?”

“Vicodin,” she said brusquely. That didn’t clarify much for Harry, but he wrapped his hand around it and took the mug of tea, hurrying out of the room.

He stopped at the first landing of the stairs, where he knew his feet were out of sight, and leaned back, hoping he could hear.

“It was worse this time, wasn’t it,” his mother was saying. “And he wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You know Moony. He’s stubborn.”

“He’s a fool, I can’t decide whether it’s humility or pride…”

“I don’t get it, Lily. He’s been so much healthier. Last week he even—well, I mean, it’s not like its not normal at this point, but he was the one to…” Harry hurried up the stairs, knowing his mum would notice him sooner or later, the way she always did.

Remus’ and Sirius’ room was on the third floor. When he reached it, the door was open, but Remus was nowhere in sight. Harry crossed over to the open window, and climbed out onto the roof.

“Careful, Harry,” Remus said. “You know Lily worries about you being out here.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Harry, edging up the slats until he had reached the flat bit as the top, where Remus was sitting. “I don’t think this is what Siri meant when he said you were supposed to be resting.”

“Probably not. Is that for me?”

“Yes,” Harry said, handing over the tea and holding out his hand with the pill in it. “And this. Why is mum giving you muggle medicine?”

Remus sighed, and regarded the pill with a exasperated look as he took it. “Sometimes when wizards get sick, their magic gets all messed up,” he said. “Your mum thinks it’s better if I have muggle medicine, just in case.”

“Oh,” said Harry. He sat down, leaving some space between him and his uncle. He knew that sometimes Remus did not like to be touched, especially when he was sick, and felt sorry that he’d given him a hug. His mum had said that some people were just like that, and it didn’t mean Remus didn’t love him, it just meant he was uncomfortable. “Is that why you’re really here?” he asked. “So mum can look after you?”

“We’re _really_ here because we wanted to see you all, Harry,” Remus said, in surprise.

“Well, yeah, but… is that the only reason?”

“Yes,” Remus said, firmly. “It’s just a bit of a night bug, I promise. I’ll probably be perfectly fine tomorrow.”

“Good,” said Harry. He felt a bit selfish saying it, but he was sure Remus did not mind. Remus never minded when Harry was a bit selfish, even if he didn’t encourage it the same way Sirius did. “Mum says we’re not going to be in London for Christmas.”

Remus was quiet for a long time, and Harry began to wonder if he hadn’t said the wrong thing. Remus had once told him how lonely it could get at Grimmauld Place, with only Kreacher and the portraits there for company in the day, and his mum had told him his uncle was out of work again. Harry couldn’t imagine why: anyone with half a brain could see that Remus was one of the smartest people in the whole world and should want him to work for them, but somehow, his uncle’s jobs never seemed to work out.

But then Remus asked, “Did she decide on Chile or Peru?” and took a long sip of his tea, so maybe he just didn’t know what to say.

“I hadn’t heard about Peru,” Harry said. “Just Chile.”

“That’s probably it, then,” Remus said. He sighed and set his mug aside. “Though really, it’s so peaceful out here. I can’t imagine wanting to leave.”

“I can,” said Harry.

Remus looked down at him, his eyebrows rising. “Are you unhappy here?”

“I want to go back to England,” Harry confessed. “There’s no one to talk to here.”

“What about your school friends?”

Harry thought about that. Nicolas and Mathis were turning out alright, since they had been spending all their yard time and lunch hours together ever since the Snake Incident. “They’re muggles,” he said, hoping that such a simple explanation could somehow contain everything that meant.

Remus nodded, as he’d hoped. Remus usually understood these things, even if his mum didn’t. “And you’d rather spend time with magical children.”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “I mean, I’d like to go into Hogwarts knowing someone, you know? And maybe have someone who gets the whole Boy-Who-Lived stupidity.”

A quiet laugh. Remus reached his arms up above his head, like he were stretching, only his arms were still bent. “I know the feeling.”

“You know,” said Harry, and he paused, chewing his lip. He did not want to jinx things, as the muggles would say, but then again, he knew he had to tell one of his uncles if he wanted to be sure, and Sirius would probably make a huge fuss. Harry loved Sirius, but Remus was always the one he could talk to. “Mum said she thought it would be better if I were just homeschooled.”

“When did she say that?”

“Three weeks ago,” Harry said. “I was telling about how her coworker’s kids though I was stupid for wanting to go to Hogwarts, not Beauxbaton’s, and…”

“She wants to keep you safe, you know, Harry,” Remus said gently.

“But it’s not fair!” Harry exclaimed. “She got to go to Hogwarts, and you and Siri, and dad!”

“You know, Harry, when I was your age, my parents didn’t want me to go to Hogwarts,” Remus said.

Harry looked up at him in surprise. “Because you were sick?” He knew his uncle had always been prone to getting sick. His mum called it an auto-immune condition, though Harry wasn’t sure how it had anything to do with cars. Maybe that was why there were bags under his eyes; Sirius had said it was a long drive. Remus nodded. “So how did you convince them…?”

“I didn’t,” said Remus. “The headmaster came, and wouldn’t leave us alone until he’d sat my dad down and told him they could make it work.”

Harry sighed. “Well, that’s not going to happen for me,” he said. “Everyone knows how much mum _hates_ Dumbledore. If he showed up here, she’d probably just curse him.”

“Maybe,” Remus admitted. “But don’t give up on Hogwarts just yet. She hasn’t said anything like that to Sirius and I, and you know how Sirius will react.”

Harry smiled. He had seen his mother’ and godfather’s arguments, and while they were nothing to smile at while they were in action, looking back at the memories of shouting and stomping up and down stairs at Grimmauld Place and tricks like pulling out chairs when the other was about to sit at the dinner table were nearly comical. It almost made Harry believe that Sirius really was his uncle, only on his mum’s side, not his dad’s, because only he and his sister could compare for petty fights.

“If she does say anything, you’ll say I should go to Hogwarts, right, Rem?” he said. “I know Siri will get hotheaded about it, but mum doesn’t really listen to him…”

“Harry,” Remus said levelly, rolling the pill around his hand. “You know I—I’d have you for a son in a heartbeat, but I’m not your dad, and I’m not your godfather, or even your real uncle.”

“But you’re _family,”_ Harry insisted. “And mum listens to you.”

Remus swallowed, and had more tea, finally taking the pill. Harry’s shoulders fell, and he looked back out towards the dark fields, watching the grass on the other side of the walls sway in the moonlight, like they were looking out on a vast ocean that disappeared into the dark where the hills rose up. It was cold out on the roof, but he didn’t mind so much. His mum usually locked the window, so he did not get to sit up there often, as much as he would have liked to read there.

Sirius’s head popped out of the window after a few minutes had passed. “Merlin, you’re a gloomy pair,” he said, scampering up to join them. He plopped down on Harry’s other side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “What are you guys sitting up here moping about?”

“Tell me about Hogwarts?” Harry asked, in lieu of a better answer.

Sirius grinned. He could always tell Harry about Hogwarts.

 

  
18.

 

Laughter.

Lily blinked, looking down at the teapot in her hands. The water had gone cold—she wasn’t even sure it had been hot to begin with—so she rinsed off the last suds and flipped the container upside-down onto the drying rack. Sirius had gone upstairs some time ago, and she’d turned off the lights before she remembered she needed to wash the teapot.  She must look a sight, standing in the dark like that, but to who? No one was watching.

She dried her pruning hands off on the dishtowel that hung off the oven door. It was good to see Sirius and Remus again, even if Remus shouldn’t have travelled in that state. She had taken a few days off work—that would give her enough time to test Remus for allergies, assuming he was feeling better.

The modified potion shouldn’t have made the nerve damage he faced worse. The transformation of a werewolf, unlike an animagus, was one that modified the existing body at an alarming rate, whereas an animagus transformation was a more magic-based shift. It was alchemy versus transfiguration, in a basic sense—rearranging what was already there, rather than magically changing it into something completely different. All she had done to the potion was add in a mild sedative, in the hopes that it would smoothen the mental agony of transformation. It should not have caused Remus pain—that was the last thing she wanted.

She sighed and checked her watch. Harry was still awake, meaning he was upstairs with his uncles. She pulled her sweater tight around her and climbed the stairs, pausing briefly to look in on Holly, though the girl had finally stopped sneaking out onto the landing and gone to sleep.

When she reached the top floor, the door open, she froze and stared across the room. The window was open. Laughter and Sirius’ storytelling voice drifted through, but for the moment, it was just her and the window. Her and her fears. She swallowed them and stumbled forward, focusing as hard as she could on the people—Sirius and Remus and _Harry_ were up there and no matter her dreams this was a waking moment, and they would not fall.

“And that was how Filch confiscated the map,” Sirius was saying as she approached the window, between fits of laughter.

“He forgets to mention how priceless McGonagall’s face was when she realized we were under the tables,” Remus added. “Let me tell you, for the rest of the year no one would touch the pies at dinner. The house-elves probably thought we’d all gone mental.”

Lily swallowed as she took the last step, and ran her hand over the wooden frame of the window. Solid, not likely to break, like the roof was solid, not likely to cave in.

“What did Dad say when he realized it was you?”

“Three days without talking,” Sirius said. She could hear the grin in his voice. “Especially when he realized we’d lost the map. It was only after the NEWTs that he really forgave us. But then, a few months later, I walk in on the first day of auror training and he’s already there telling the others the story.”

She took a deep breath. She didn’t have to step out on the ledge, even. She would just lean out…

“Harry,” she said, looking up and focusing on her son’s face. It tore at her heart to see him grin like that. How rarely he looked so much like his father, when it was just her. Even now his face fell as he looked down the slope, and his light posture stiffened as his shoulders rose. “It’s time for bed, love.”

“Right,” he said. He got up into a crouch, disentangling himself from the arm Sirius had wrapped around his shoulder. “’night Siri, Rem.”

“Goodnight, Harry.”

She held her breath as he took his time going down the slats. For a moment, he seemed to freeze, and then his shoes lost their grip, and he went tumbling down the slope, disappearing off the edge into the dark—

“Mum?”

She blinked, and he was there, trying to get past her into the room. She stepped back, away from the damned window. One dream, that had been all, and it plagued her so intensely.

She followed her son closely down the narrow top set of stairs, watching his grip on the railing, and it wasn’t until he had reached the first floor that she really relaxed. But her son paused and looked up at her.

“Mum, you know I really am sorry about Claude, right?” he said.

She blinked. “I think you’ve made that clear, Harry,” she said. He had scrubbed her cauldrons for two weeks straight.

“But I really do want to go back to England,” he said. “I know I have to have two more years of muggle school, and Holly’s still got four. But I don’t want to stay here. I want to go home. You know that, right?”

She frowned. It seemed the need to decide on whether she would send her son to Hogwarts or not was getting closer. She loathed to say no, when he was obviously looking forward to it so dearly, but her son’s happiness took back seat to his safety. Hogwarts was simply not safe enough for Harry Potter, not as he was. She sighed.

“I know Harry. But things aren’t that simple.”

“They could be,” he said, looking at her. For a moment she wished she could simply undo the ward on his eyes, to see her own staring back at her, to know that this was her son, no matter what. She could not. The best way to keep her son disguised was to keep him disguised even from himself.

“Goodnight, mum,” he said, turning towards the door.

“Goodnight, Harry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday! I'm afraid this chapter kicked my ass most aggressively, because a lot of new writing had to be done with it. I'm still not sure I'm entirely happy, so it may require a second rewrite at some later point.
> 
> On a slightly different note - out of curiosity for any French speakers out there - is there a french version of the idiom "cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye"? My research turned up "croix de bois croix de fer, si je mens je vais en enfer", but I wasn't sure if that was used commonly. Anyhow, it doesn't have any real bearing on the story, as I'm not attempting to include any actual French in my writing. Just a curio.  
> Thank you, as always, for reading!


	7. The Mezzanine Hour Pt I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also titled: The Emotional Roller Coaster Chapter.

 19.

 

“Harry! Are you going to braid my hair or not?”

Summer had once again fallen on London, sweltering in the way that made the suburbs lament the lack of air conditioning. Tourists flocked to the museums and festered around the Thames in the evening, having come dressed for the grey they’d been told London’s weather would consist of. Businesspeople sweated in their suits and fainted in the tube. The news reported first that crime was up, then down, and then was distracted by the latest scandal. It was, by all reasoning, a summer most ordinary.

To the ten-year-old boy sprawled on twin bed in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, it was not an ordinary summer in the slightest, but then again, he was reading, so maybe it was not so unusual after all. He tore away his eyes from the page, and rolled over lazily, pawing around the covers for his glasses. In the doorway of the loo connected to their shared bedroom, his sister stood, arms crossed across his chest. He sighed. She must have gotten out of the bath twenty minutes ago; he hair was half-dry already. “Fine,” he said, lifted the book up over his head so he could get a few more paragraphs in. “Get the brush and everything.”

A minute later the bed sagged as his sister plopped down next to him, dropping the brush and vial of hair potion onto his stomach. Harry slowly dog-eared the page and closed the book, sitting up and letting the items tumble into his lap.

“Come _on_ ,” Holly whined. “Mum said she’d take us shopping once we got ready an’ all.”

“I don’t know why you’re having me braid your hair,” Harry muttered. “Mum’s just going to change it anyways.”

He nudged her forwards so her feet dangled off the side of the bed, then got up on his knees. The potion vial he uncapped and tapped on his palm, letting the oddly goopy liquid pool. It was the same potion he used on his own hair, only Holly’s hair was naturally silky, like their mum’s. He’d gotten his dad’s hair: a naturally rough, thick bunch that stuck out in every direction without the aid of the potion. On Holly’s, the potion merely kept things tidy, and had the bonus effect of absorbing some of the leftover water.

“Blonde hair can look good braided—ow! Harry, you’re pulling!”

“I fail to understand how you manage to brush your hair if _that’s_ pulling,” he said, though he slowed down his hands a bit, moving with greater care.

“I fail to understand how you talk like that. Ow!”

“Honestly, do you want me to braid it or not? Stop squirming, Hols.”

She sighed, and crossed her arms again, but for once said nothing, kicking her feet back and forth against the bed. Harry sectioned her hair into pieces, the way their mum had shown him when braiding had picked up as a trend at the muggle school, then tossed the brush back down onto the bed and started weaving the pieces together. He liked braiding well enough. It was like putting together a puzzle. And it made his sister giggle with pride when she saw her reflection, even though he liked her hair better long and loose.

“Harry,” Holly said, never one to settle for the silence. “What do you think mum’s getting you for your birthday?”

“I dunno,” he said. “School things, I expect.”

“But you still haven’t gotten your letter.”

“Sirius said they don’t send them until late June. It’s only the twentieth.”

“But what if you don’t get one?”

Harry rolled his eyes. He was magical and British; it wasn’t _getting_ the letter he needed to worry about. Only his sister would worry about something like that, so he concentrated as hard as he could on his hands and tried to make what was left loose of Holly’s hair stand up straight. She shrieked when it did. “ _Harry!”_

He laughed and let it back down, but just then their mum stuck her head through the door. She still looked like herself, short red hair and green eyes and freckles, so they weren’t in any rush, no matter Holly’s impatience. “Is everything alright?” she asked, a cautious smile twitching up the corners of her lips.

“Harry’s being mean!”

“He’s fixing your hair, Hollis. That’s doing a favor, not being mean.” She looked at Harry levelly. “Come downstairs for breakfast when you’re done, Harry. Hollis, you still didn’t put away your mess in the library.”

“But mum—”

“No ‘buts’, I asked you to clean it up, and that’s that,” she said. Holly slumped as their mother slipped away from the door.

“Would you please sit still?” Harry asked.  He didn’t really want to pull his sister’s hair. She sat up again with a huff.

“There,” he said, as he secured the band around the end of her braid a few minutes later. It wrapped neatly around one side of her head to fall over the opposite shoulder when he set it down. “You should really learn how to do that yourself.”

“It’s too hard.”

“What are you going to do when I’m at school?”

“Ask mum, I suppose,” she said, but then she stood and faced her brother, who was already reaching for his book again. “Harry,” she continued, softer. “I don’t want you to go.”

He blinked. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve got to learn magic.”

“So? You’ll be off at Hogwarts and I’ll be stuck in the manor with just Mum.”

“What about Martel?” he asked. Holly grabbed at the end of her braid and started twirling it around her finger, as she often did.

“Martel’s just a muggle,” she said, but then she looked up again, eyes wide. “Not that—that’s not bad. It’s not. But, it’s…”

“It’s not magic,” he said. He knew the sentiment. “I mean, you only have two more years. Then you can go to Hogwarts yourself.”

“Two whole years!” It was a long time, Harry would admit. “How am I supposed to stand just mum for two years?”

Harry laughed. “Yeah, you won’t have me to cover for you when you make a—you’re just avoiding cleaning up the library, aren’t you? I’m not going to help.”

She stuck out her tongue and spun around to storm out of the room, and Harry continued to laugh until he heard her opening the heavy door above their room. Their room was on the second floor, so it was stairs either way. He languidly put his book back down and stretched, getting up to take the brush and potion into the bathroom, where he paused to adjust a few stray hairs and check his forehead.

It had only been a few hours since he last rubbed in the potion that stretched out the scar and melded it into the rest of the skin, so it wasn’t even looking patchy yet. According to his mum, he could let it go for two whole days without anything being too noticeable, but he was always the first to notice any changes. He’d been smoothening out the skin since he was four, so it had been years since he last saw the scar in full showing. When was it last—the Halloween Gala, all those years ago? He’d seen a photo of himself riding Sirius’ shoulders in the paper his mum had left out a few days later, the one that started the papers’ ridiculous trend of referring to her as ‘The Witch’, as though that weren’t the word for all female magic users.

Passing through his room again, he grabbed his hoodie off the back of his desk chair, and considered stuffing _The Hobbit_ into the pocket. If they were going to be out shopping, he could be stuck for hours as Holly perused the clothing. On the other hand, if he didn’t have a book with him he might be able to convince Lily to stop by a Waterstones, so he left it behind. As much as he like rereading his favorites, Harry could never help his excitement at the thought of a new book.

He thought about this as he slowly moved down the stairs, treading lightly lest they creak. Most of his reading was of muggle authors, not magic ones, because they seemed to have more imaginative stories. He’d read some of the classics, of course, and had read through the Tales of Beedle the Bard with Holly when she was learning how to read, but there was something lacking when magic was already real. With muggles, magic was something strange and exciting, and they always wrote it as such. Sure, Tolkien had gotten a lot of things wrong in his descriptions of elves and magical creatures, but his story also took place in a different world, with its own rules and histories and races and languages. Harry loved that—he love science fiction for the same reason. He loved watching the video recordings of Doctor Who his mum had picked up cheap at some muggle’s estate sale, loved renting the movies from the store Remus didn’t mind walking with him to. Magical writers, living in a world painfully behind the times in technology, could hardly be expected to dream up such great science fiction.

But beyond the writing, and the telly, of course, Harry was sick of muggles. He was sick of going to school and studying maths and chasing the football around the yard at lunch time, sick of speaking in French and, most of all, sick of pretending to be “James Jeannot”. Chief on his list of things to be excited about at Hogwarts—tied only with the whole getting to use magic thing—was finally being able to introduce himself to people as Harry. And of course Holly and his mum and uncles were the most important people to him, but he couldn’t help but want some proper friends. Not Nicolas, the boy who’d started following him around like a puppy after he’d talked the snakes into hiding in Claude’s desk; not Mathis, his sister’s friend Martel’s older brother, but actual _friends_ , who he could talk to about magic and quidditch and who could actually know his name—and everything that had until now been a stupid secret. He didn’t care so much about the whole Harry Potter thing. The Boy Who Lived was more his mum’s project, not his. But even that he wouldn’t mind being able to talk to someone about. To be able to choose for himself what secrets to keep and share.

Thinking of all this, he launched himself up off the railing to jump the last several steps down to the landing. That, of course, set off old Walpurga’s stupid portrait, yelling about how he was a half-mudblood in a house of blood traitors. From behind the sound bubble his mum had charmed, she sounded like a telly running in another room.

They’d mostly just gotten used to ignoring her, because even if there were all these weird Black family things lying around the place (not to mention Kreacher, the onerous house-elf seemingly more intent on making their lives hell than doing anything useful) this was Grimmauld Place, and that meant London. His mum had finally declared the reconstruction of the house in Godric’s Hollow complete, and they’d spent two weeks there, but they’d been so far out of London it had been a pain to get anything done. It certainly made Sirius happier to have them back; when they were around playing muggle video games in the library and finding excuses to use the phone, Walpurga’s portrait really had something to scream about.

“Set her off again, did you?” Sirius asked, sticking his head out the kitchen doorway. Harry grinned and gave his uncle a hug. Sure, they weren’t blood relatives, technically, but his mum said he’d been listed as a registered guardian with the ministry, whatever that meant—and when he’d run out of this place all those years ago, Sirius had ended up living with Harry’s dad. James, Sirius, Remus, and even Peter had all considered each other family anyhow. Peter had ended up betraying them, but Sirius and Remus had become the kids’ uncles. They were a lot more welcoming than their relatives on Lily’s side, who’d they’d only met once, with disastrous results that had proven Holly magical. Sirius and Remus weren’t related, but they were family, and family that Harry always felt they didn’t get to see enough.

“Guess what,” said Sirius, pulling Harry into the kitchen. He pointed at the table, where Remus had set out plates of breakfast for the five of them. Harry’s place, which was on the right-hand corner, next to the far end where Sirius sat, had something leaning up against the glass. Harry couldn’t help it—he ran forward and snatched up the envelope, whooping when he saw the Hogwarts seal pressed into wax.

But when he flipped it over, his joy dropped out the window. The letter, written in green ink, was addressed to none other than _James Jeannot._

“Sirius!” his mother snapped, appearing from the cellar door and sweeping out to snatch the letter from Harry’s hand. “I told you—”

“Why is my letter addressed to James Jeannot?” Harry demanded. His mother looked at him, breaking off her _Don’t Interrupt Me, Harry_ look to glance down at the letter in her hand, and shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter, anyways, because—”

“Doesn’t matter?” Harry said. “Doesn’t matter?” his voice, he found, was gaining volume of its own volition, and while he rarely shouted, now even if he had wanted to he couldn’t have regained control. “We’re not in France anymore, Mum! We’re in England, in the magical world, aren’t we? Where I’m Harry?”

“Harry, calm down,” his mother said, rounding the table away from him. Remus came in from the kitchen behind her, a basket covered with a towel in his hands.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“ _I am not going to Hogwarts as James!”_

“Of course you’re not, Harry,” Sirius soothed, trying to put an arm around Harry’s shoulder.

“No, of course not,” said Lily, and she pulled her seat out. “I’ve finally found an acceptable tutor, so you won’t be going to Hogwarts. It’s not an issue.”

The silence that fell between them was like the air had been sucked out all at once. When it came rushing back in, so did all three voices.

“Lily, don’t be—”

_“What do you mean—”_

“You’re being absolutely ridic—”

“Why are you shouting?” asked Holly, coming in the doorway. She must have run down the stairs, because a few hairs had slipped free of her braid.

“Nothing,” said Lily. “Come have breakfast, dear.”

Harry stared at her.

And stared.

He could feel a rage pooling in his stomach, bubbling like one of her potions, boiling like it had when Claude broke Holly’s toy, two years past. He wanted to scream at her, to yell, but he couldn’t find the words, and he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. That was how she worked, after all. She’d say something absurd, and when everyone else got up in arms she saw only their passion and how illogical that must make them, and sat on her personal throne of self-righteousness and raised herself higher to lord over them. So Harry did the worst thing he could think of: he turned and stormed out of Sirius’ arms, out of the room, ignoring their calling after him, and he ran through the landing and tore the curtain down from Walpurga’s portrait, pulling the muting charm with it, and then stomped up the stairs and into his rooms and slammed the door.

And then he opened it, and ran down one flight again. “ _Fuck you!”_ he shouted, loud as he could muster, and the house-elf heads Remus hadn’t been able to unstick came toppling down, crashing to the floor, and he stomped back up.

 

 

20.

 

Several items in the bedroom were broken by the time Lily came knocking. He had pushed the dresser from beside door to in front of it, so even if she unlocked the door she wouldn’t be able to get in, and then he had slammed the doors of his and Holly’s closets and the bathroom and didn’t feel any better. She came knocking, as he knew she would, and when she found the door barred she spoke through it.

“Harry, you need to come back out here. You’re being absolutely ridiculous. Are you a child?”

“ _Yes!”_ he shouted back at her, and he jumped onto the bed and buried his head into the pillow so her voice was muffled, and the other voice that joined her a few seconds later was muffled too, and he very emphatically didn’t care. They went away—he moved the pillow to hear the feet on the stairs, and found that somehow that just made him angrier.

He hated Lily, hated her freakish need for control, hated that she thought she could take this away from him. He was going to Hogwarts; he didn’t care what she said. He was going.

He took everything nearby— _The Hobbit,_ the pillow, a plastic alarm clock, the shoes Holly had left on the floor—and flung them at the door. Then, when he noticed his eyes stinging and his vision blurring with tears, he took off his glasses and flung them, too.

It was harder to find things to throw with the world blurry, so he flung himself, back onto the bed, and let out some of the choice expletives living around Sirius and Lily had exposed him too. For good measure, he repeated them in French, too, and then added on the handful of things he knew in German, because it was a good, harsh language to spit out.

Eventually, he registered the door shutting downstairs, and grew quiet, staring up at the ceiling, the curses still echoing around his mind like he’d spat them into a cavern inside himself.

His stomach’s growling was the first thing reasonable he noticed. He’d run away from breakfast, and that had been late in coming, and he wasn’t quite sure how long had passed since them. But he wasn’t going down there now. Instead, he rolled over and opened the drawer of his bedside table, pulling out a bar of chocolate Remus had brought home when he’d visited Honeydukes a few weeks earlier. Remus always said chocolate could make anything better. Harry didn’t buy that, but he did know it was enough to cure an empty stomach, and had the added benefit of being disapproved of by Lily. She worked in a hospital, and had her fair share of nutritional quips, which substituting chocolate for meals of substance would have reigned over.

Finishing half the chocolate bar and setting the other side for later, Harry went into the bathroom to wash his hands of the brown smudges. He looked into the mirror, and immediately felt sorry for himself: even blurred he could see his hair was standing up on end and his eyes and nose were the same puffy, bright red. The scar was still hidden, of course, but the mess hair and bright patches on his usually tan face made him angry all over again.

He tried to calm down, he really did, but how could he? Books always said splashing water on your face would help, so he turned the sink on full blast and shoved his head under it. This did little more than shock him with the cold and make him jump back. He scowled and leaned into the mirror. It didn’t look any different—maybe a bit redder, and his eyes looked greener around the edges, which for once made him even more angry, so he shoved his head under again. The water dribbled down side of his face and into the corners of his mouth, and made him choke trying to spit it out in reflex, and when he pulled back his head he hit it against the metal faucet, which made water spray every which way and an ice cold dribble run down the back of his neck and into his sweatshirt. When he got up straight again and looked in the mirror, somehow only half of his hair had gotten wet, and the rest stuck up even worse than before.

The mirror, he found moments later, was significantly more solid than muggle movies had told him it would be. He had manage to make an indent, spider web cracks forming out from around his hand, and his knuckles stung and something in his hand crunched, but the mirror itself did not shatter. Instead, the face of _Harry Potter_ stared back at him in silent distortion. He hated it.

He _hated_ it.

If he weren’t _Harry Bloody Potter_ none of this would have happened. Lily wouldn’t be trying to keep him from Hogwarts, the way she kept him from the rest of the magical world. He wouldn’t have his letter addressed to James _Fucking_ Jeannot, it would be to Harry—just Harry. The way he was. Not some bloody story-time hero for little kids, not anyone other than himself. Just Harry.

This time, when he buried his face into his bedcovers, he really did scream.

 

 

21.

 

“You’re being ridiculous,” someone said.

Harry sat up. The voice hadn’t come from outside the door, it had come from here, in this very room. Finally he felt around on his floor until he found his glasses, and crammed them back onto his face. He looked around, trying to find it—and the wizard in the picture frame sighed.

“You?” Harry said, falling back onto the end of his bed. “What are you—you’re never here!”

“Well you’ve been making such a racket I thought that someone had died.” The wizard huffed, studying his nails. Harry moved into a more comfortable position, one that didn’t put so much pressure on his hand. “And who are you, exactly?”

“Nobody,” Harry said bitterly. “No one at all.”

The wizard rolled his eyes. “Clearly,” he said. “No one with any importance in the world would be making so much of a racket.”

Somehow this made Harry feel a little bit better, though he was sure that wasn’t the intent.

“Who are you, then?” he asked. The portrait certainly looked like other Black portraits, with his dark hair and dark eyes, but he also had on a strange straw hat that curved around itself, twisted like a single oversized goat horn placed atop his head. “And what are you doing in my bedroom? Where are you normally?”

“Your bedroom?” the wizard asked. He looked down his nose at Harry, painted nostrils flaring. “I, I’ll have you know, young Nobody, am Phineas Nigellus Black, and this is my home, and this was my study, before someone came along, had too many children, and had the bright idea to turn it into a bedroom!” He looked around the room, lips forming into tight lines as they made a toad-like expression across his face. “Someone with terrible taste in décor.” He looked back at Harry. “Who are you, then? Clearly not a Black, or I would know of it.”

“No,” said Harry. “But Sirius is my uncle, and I’m living here right now. And I’ve never seen you here before.”

“So just because you haven’t seen me, you get to declare my study _your_ room?” the wizard demanded. Harry thought about it, and shrugged. “Ridiculous.” The man paused, staring at Harry in a way that made him quite uncomfortable, until finally—“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, aren’t you going to explain yourself? I could hear you all the way from my other portrait. Why were you making such an appalling cacophony?”

Harry’s head sank into his shoulders a bit. “My Hogwarts letter came.”

“And this is a _bad_ thing? You seem the sort of boy for tasteless celebrations. _Cake_.”

“My mum doesn’t want me to go.”

“Why? You aren’t a squib, or some sort of half-breed, are you? Merlin knows they’ll acceptanyone, these days…”

“No,” said Harry. “But she thinks it’s too dangerous.”

“Too dangerous?” the man scoffed. “Dangerous indeed. You might end up having ideas, and _thinking._ Whatever will she do when you start saying no to your own dear mother?” He paused. “And what is she going to do, then? Train you up herself? I can give you half a dozen instance where that went terribly wrong, and that’s just off the top of my head. Take Elizabeth McCleary—her parents _tried_ to teach her themselves. When I finally talked them into sending her up to Hogwarts, for their own safety, she had to go back two years, to unlearn everything they had taught her. And ten years later, where did she end up but St. Mungos, as the first long-term patient in the new wing!”

“Did you teach at Hogwarts?”

“Teach?” The man barked a laugh, a terribly unpleasant sound. “Teach? I was the Headmaster, young _Nobody_ , for twenty years!”

“So you taught first, right?”

The man’s eyes thinned with his glare. “Of course I did,” he snapped. “History of Magic. The last Professor before Cuthbert took over, and Merlin knows when that will end.” He scratched his nose, making the strange hat bob dangerously. “Could never stand it, of course. You _children_ have no respect for your elders.”

“Why should we,” Harry asked, thinking of Lily, “When you have no respect for us?”

The man’s scowl deepened, carving a deep furrow between his brows. “Well,” he said. “If this is what I get for going out of my way to be nice, I can’t see why anyone would ever do so. I was _going_ to offer to give your mother a good talking to, but if you’re going to be unpleasant, I don’t see why I should.” He turned and started to walk out of the painting, voice trailing after him. “Hogwarts doesn’t need any more smart-mouthed spoiled brats; there are plenty of those already.”

“Wait!” Harry cried, but the man was already gone. When it was clear he was not going to come back, Harry fell back onto his bed. Of course he had managed to drive away this last link to Hogwarts. He was doomed. Lily would never be persuaded, and he would be stuck living his life as a French muggle and grow up to be a farmer and have a herd of mundane children and—

“Well,” Black said—and Harry sat straight up to see the man back in his frame—“Everyone else wanted to know where I had gone, and so the current headmaster heard and told me to tell you that he wouldn’t be terribly troubled if you wanted him to make a house call, to convince your mother that you most certainly should be at Hogwarts, if you got a letter.”

“The current headmaster?” Harry repeated. He wasn’t sure what Black meant by ‘everyone else’, but he was glad now he hadn’t given away his name. Lily would be furious. Then again…

“Albus Dumbledore,” Black said, nose wrinkling up in disdain.

Dumbledore. Well, that explained a lot.

“I don’t think that would—” Harry paused. He still wasn’t sure how much he should give away, especially when as far as Lily was concerned Dumbledore was almost as bad as Voldemort. That was saying something, and Harry wasn’t sure it could be true if the man was headmaster at _Hogwarts_ , but it wouldn’t do to go rushing into things without holding his cards close. “Tell him my Uncle Sirius and all his friends think that he is an absolute—” he paused, considering, and decided to use Sirius’ term “—bloody wanker, and so that would hardly do any good.”

Black looked delighted. He even tipped his hat at Harry. “Will do—will do indeed!” he said, and scampered out of his frame. Harry fell back on the bed again, though this time he made sure to keep a good eye on the empty portrait. “Wanker,” he whispered, trying out the word on his tongue. He had probably shouted it earlier with the other curses, but now he wasn’t sure if he liked it—he knew some good French insults, picked up in the schoolyard, but English he had only ever really spoken with his mum, Holly, Sirius, and Remus, so he wasn’t as good with slang. “Wanker,” he said again. “Wanker, wanker, wanker—”

“You made several of the more prudish headmasters blush,” Black said, returning with something that looked like a bob in his step. “Do you have any more of those insults, young man? It is always good fun to deliver insults unto Dumbledore.”

“Sure,” said Harry. “Mum calls him a Right Bastard, and Sirius—wait, is that all you came back for?”

“Well, the _right bastard_ said to apologize for him, as he agreed that it would do little good if Sirius Black were among your mother’s friends. Sirius—” Black’s face contorted a bit. “Which one is that, again? Named after my brother, no doubt, so he must be the grandson—no, great-grandson, of…”

“You can tell him he’s a right bastard, and all that,” Harry said helpfully. He had spent a lot of time staring at the family tree that filled the walls of one of the rooms on the first floor. It was twisted and convoluted in ways Harry didn’t fully understand, and had quickly learned not to think to much on, as when you went further back there were siblings marrying and having kids, not just cousins, and that was bad enough. He’d tried to imagine marrying Holly, and while he loved her… marriage? Ew.

“Oh, I will,” said Black. He turned to leave, but then paused and looked back. “You know, you can direct your mother to my portrait…”

“I doubt it would help very much,” Harry said glumly. His mind had wandered a bit on the whole Black thing, and… “Besides, she’s a muggleborn.”

“Well,” said Black, and they looked at each other for a moment, then the man walked away.

Harry fell back once again. Somehow the conversation with a long-dead wizard had calmed him down more than anything else. His hand still hurt, and he was still angry, but it was more like smoking embers than a full on fire, now. But he still had absolutely no intention to move the dresser away from the door, and besides, he was tired. An hour or two had passed since he had shut himself away, maybe three, but the anger had taken so much out of him he just wanted to sleep. And he couldn’t see why not. So he took off his glasses—and out of spite, threw them off across the room again, making a thump as they hit one of the wardrobes—and fell back into the covers, and into sleep.

 

 

0.

 

_He dreamed._

_It was Halloween again, and his mum was leading him up the narrow stairs at the top of the manor, only it wasn’t to his Uncles’ room but to her study, where the pensieve sat on the table. “But I don’t want to look,” he said, but the hand she had gripped on his arm turned into a snake, which wound around and around his arm and hissed at him. It took him a moment to understand that was what it was doing, because he couldn’t understand the snake, and he could always understand snakes, as easily as he could understand French. The snake wound so far up his arm it reached his back, and it curved up out of sight. He tried to turn and look at it, because it had grown bigger and bigger, but something pushed on the back of his head so he leaned closer to the pensieve. And when he looked again it was full of bright green garden snakes, all hissing at him as he got closer and closer—_

_“_ Harry _?”_

_—and then he hit the water of the pensieve and fell through, in the memory. The nursery at the house at Godric’s Hollow. “James!” someone shrieked—it wasn’t his mother, because his mother had come through the door in the black dress and cloak she had worn to the Halloween Gala, and everything was grey except for the red of her hair._

_“_ Harry _?”_

_She raised a hand and the sight of it made his stomach churn: her skin had rotted away, leaving exposed bone and sinewy muscle. She pointed back out down the stairs, and he could see down them, to where his father’s body lay in the hallway._

_“You did this,” she said, her voice like rustling paper, the language of the Snakes that had eluded him before._

_“No,” he said. “I didn’t—”_

_“I just wanted to keep you safe,” she said. “Now look what has happened!”_

_And he looked again and realized that the body at the bottom of the stairs was not his father, but his sister. “No!” he shouted, and ran down the stairs. He shook Holly’s shoulders, and her eyes opened—only they were no longer grey, but red. Suddenly she was standing over him, in his mother’s dress and she raised her wand—a green light—he raised his hand to stop it—pain—_

_“Harry?” a voice was calling—_

 

_23._

“Harry?”

Harry blinked and look around. He was sitting up in bed, panting, his hand stretched out in front him, and he had no clue why. It had swollen, and the knuckle blossomed a nasty bruise, and he cradled it close to his chest he could see there were bright scratch marks around the knuckle, where it must have been bleeding before.

There was a light knocking at the door. “Harry, you are in there, right?”

It was Sirius. Harry sighed, rubbing sleep from his eyes with his other hand. “What is it?” he called back, just loud enough to be heard.

“We’ve had a talk with your mum. Can I come in?”

Harry slowly got up off the bed and walked to the door, which still had the dresser blocking it. He pulled it about half a meter before it got caught on the rug and wouldn’t budge. Harry wasn’t exactly a large ten-year-old. He wasn’t even sure how he had gotten it there so easily in the first place: it had been sitting on the rug, which had long strands that made everything difficult to move, and it would have had to have been pushed at least five meters before it hit the hardwood that was only a fraction easier to move across.

“It’s stuck,” he said.

Sirius opened the door as far as he could, poking his head in. “Nice blockade,” he said, and tried to push it from the other side. It barely budged before he, too, gave up. “Well,” he said.  “Lets see…”

Harry blinked as Sirius used the sturdy dresser and the door frame to lift himself up over it. The movement clearly took a good deal of arm strength, and Sirius winked at him as he settled down on the top of the dresser. “Not quite an old fogey yet,” he said and leaned forward to grab Harry and help him up beside him. “What did you do to your hand?”

Harry reached back and pushed the door closed. “Punched the mirror.”

“Ouch,” said Sirius. “There’s unbreakable charms on the lot of them. One of my aunts was a superstitious old bitch.”

“Unbreakable charms?” Harry repeated. “Not on mine. I—I maybe broke it a bit.”

Sirius stared at him, then laughed. “Well, you knocked down the stuck house-elf heads, too. Maybe next time you’re angry I’ll turn you loose on the bitch’s old portrait, stuck in the hall.”

Harry flattened his hair down to occupy his good hand while he scowled. “I think I like her down there. She’s a good way to annoy mum.”

“There’s a difference between an annoyance and forcing abuse onto someone, kid,” Sirius warned.

“So what would you call what mum’s trying to pull, then?”

“Protection,” Sirius said simply. Harry looked at him, just close enough that even without his glasses he could see his uncle’s calm face. They looked at each other for a moment, then Sirius’ face fell, and he sighed, running his hand through his hair, ruffling his bangs back from his ears and into the rest of his brown curls. “I know it doesn’t seem it, but she’s trying, kid. It would kill her if something were to happen to you or your sister. She’s just trying to keep you safe.”

“You’re the one who said she was being ridiculous, earlier. You said it to her face.”

“Well, she’s certainly blowing things out of proportion,” said Sirius. “At least, far as I can see. But you have to remember, your mum is always going to see the world differently from the rest of us.” He paused. “But I talked to her.”

“And?”

“And she’ll let you go.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear. Well, I can't say this chapter wasn't fun to re-visit, but.... really, there's only so much emotional intensity you can right before it starts sounding /really/ crack-y. I cut off here because I realized if I didn't the chapter would be about 12,000 words, which I did not have time to get through, and it makes things a lot easier on me, because I'm currently hitting my late midterms and heading into the finals rush. Since I'm about halfway through the next bit, that next week's will definitely be on time, but I may or may not have to put off the chapter after that, and then we're getting into the dangerous territory of new writing, which takes a lot longer. But hey, at least two more chapters in relatively reasonable time, right?  
> Thank you all for reading, and for the lovely comments. You're all wonderful dears. The next chapter is relatively calmer. Ish. Kinda. No promises.


	8. The Mezzanine Hour Pt II

 

23.

 

Harry’s breath caught in his throat, and he stared. His uncle’s face was the most sincere Harry had ever seen it. Sirius wasn’t ONE for slowing down and sorting through emotions; that was more Remus’ area. But here he was, drawn back in thought.

Harry swallowed. _He could go to Hogwarts._ He would fight with his mum later, he knew it, but for now he was too relieved to care. “How’d you—what?”

“We talked to her,” Sirius repeated. He jumped down off the dresser. “It’ll be a lot of hard work for you in the mean time, and you’ll have to go as ‘James’, but—stay put for a sec,” he said, and pushed the whole thing, boy and all, back against the door.

“What did you say to her?”

Getting back up, Sirius leaned back against the door. “That’s better.”

“Siri, I mean it. Mum never takes anything back. Ever.”

“Now you’re being silly,” said Sirius. “Of course she does. And she’s not used to being wrong, but she’ll admit it when she is. Lily just doesn’t like hurting people, Harry; that’s why she’s a healer. She likes helping people deal with pain and getting past it. Anyone with half a heart could see she’d stepped over a line with you.”

“Wouldn’t you be angry, if your mum had said you couldn’t go?”

“Oh, I would have been livid. But my mum wouldn’t have had any good intentions keeping me back, would she? Your mum is honestly trying to protect you. And Harry—it’s not your fault at all, but it’s very difficult to keep you safe.”

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Harry muttered. “Honestly, don’t people really think that Harry Potter—that I’m some sort of  miracle? They don’t want to hurt me, just make me into some sort of weird hero thing.”

“You haven’t seen the half of it, kid. Idolizing someone can be just as harmful as demonizing them, and since people are idiots, there’s not really much difference.”

“Still,” said Harry. “I—I really don’t think most people care. Mum’s just so excessively focused on how terrible the world is. I just want to go to Hogwarts and have friends and learn magic, and mum would rather build Azkaban two-point-O to lock me up inside.”

Sirius flinched, but put his arm around Harry’s shoulder. He wondered if he shouldn’t have used Azkaban in his metaphor, no matter how many times he had thought it. The prison was, after all, the one thing Sirius wouldn’t talk with him about.

“When his parents died,” said Sirius softly, “James changed. It wasn’t a bad thing—maybe you could say he finally grew up a little.” He stared off into space for a moment, then laughed, though nothing he had said had been funny. “Well, maybe it was about time. James had always been the most outgoing, confident Gryff there ever was. But after his parents died, he got… quiet.”

“Quiet?” Harry echoed. The idea hardly fit in the picture he’d been painted of his father by the stories; practical joker and repeat offender for the title of idiot, cocky brat who didn’t know when to hold back a little, intensely caring and fiercely protective all the same.

“I think he finally understood what it meant to lose someone. His parents had been pretty old when he was born, and they’d been his only family growing up. I know you might not see it this way, but for most kids, parents are… immortal. Unshakable. Like them or not, they’re the picture of strength and adulthood.”

“Even yours?”

“To some extent,” Sirius said. “But for me, your Dad’s parents were the only ones I really looked up to. Maybe all four of us grew up a little when they died, I dunno. But James changed the most.”

Harry’s hand stung. He had almost forgotten about it. He must have made some sort of sound, because Sirius pulled out of his musings and gave him a glance, which turned into a rueful smile. Harry swallowed, and forced himself not to move to look at his injury, letting Sirius think Harry was following his train of thought. He’d seen this quieter side of Sirius before, of course, but he was used to the man who had spitefully put dirty muggle magazine cut-outs all over his walls as a kid, who chased Harry and Holly around the house and caught them by jumping over banisters to get ahead on the stairs, who shouted at the telly when he lost to them in video games.

“When we lose people close to us like that, we change,” he said now, his voice soft. “I changed, when your dad died. I don’t think there been a day that something hasn’t happened to make me miss him. Remus changed. And your mother…”

“What was she like, before?”

“Smiled a lot more. And always believed the best of everyone. Innocent until proven guilty, and then forgiven by a tear.”

Harry thought about their conversations about Dumbledore. It had been almost ten years since his dad died, and not for a moment had she relented in her anger. He didn’t understand what he could have done that was so bad, because You-Know-Who had been the one to kill James Potter and Dumbledore had been trying to stop him, but he didn’t think Lily would ever forgive the wizard. And he thought about the way she always told off Remus when he lost another job after having insisted that everything was going well. No matter how many times he said the new boss was different and would understand his susceptibility to illness was out of his control, he would eventually come back without a job and get into a shouting match with Sirius and Lily over having said nothing. “Mum hates people like that.”

“I don’t think she hates them. I don’t think she hates anyone, really, kid. But… she thinks she was naïve, before, and worries about people like that. Worries they’ll lose as much as she did.”

“That’s stupid,” Harry said. He thumped his good hand on the dresser’s edge. “It’s better to believe the best of people, right? It’s what always happens in the books. Someone you think can’t be trusted at first is really the hero all along. Like Strider.”

“Strider?” Sirius echoed.

Harry had forgotten, in the wake of his uncle’s mature moment, that Sirius didn’t read his muggle novels the way Remus did. “Aragorn. Everyone is skeptical of him, but it turns out he’s the last in the line of the kings of Gondor.”

Sirius laughed, and reached up to ruffle Harry’s hair. It wasn’t wet anymore, the boy realized—how long had he been asleep?

“Right. Maybe Remus should be talking to you,” Sirius said, and paused. “It’s not always that way, though, Harry. You can’t just go around trusting everyone. Your mum just wants to keep you safe, and that’s harder with you than most.”

“I thought it would be harder for Holly. That’s why we have to keep her a secret, right?”

“It could be, ‘specially now that its been so long. But she’s a pretty well-kept secret, isn’t she? So it’s easier to protect her, because no one would go out of the way to try and hurt her.”

“But they’d try to hurt Harry Potter.”

Sirius sighed. “I know, kid. It sucks. Some people are ridiculous.”

“So is it safe for me?” Harry asked. “At Hogwarts. I mean, I want to go. More than anything in the world, I want to go. But is it safe?”

Sirius thought for a bit longer than Harry had expected. “Well, Hogwarts is the safest place in the world.”

“That’s convincing.”

Sirius messed his hair more, which would have annoyed him if it weren’t such a mess already. “Don’t be a brat, kid,” he said, in a tone that suggested Harry should strive to be even more bratty whenever he got the chance. “It really is the safest place, unless you want to be locked up in a vault in Gringotts. Nothing from the outside world can get in, if its not wanted.”

“What about things that are already there?” Harry asked, thinking, again, of Dumbledore.

“Well,” said Sirius, thinking of something else. “Those things are everywhere.”

The man sighed and climbed down off the dresser again. “Come on,” he told Harry. “Will you help me move this hunk of junk? You can come back in here and hide again if you’d like, but we should at least wrap up that hand of yours, or something. And maybe some dinner?”

Harry felt his stomach churn and got down. He wasn’t entirely satisfied with breaking off his protest so simply, but he’d only had half a chocolate bar. He was hungry. “What time is it?” he asked.

“Half past seven. Your mum and Holly brought Chinese food back when they went shopping.”

“Half past _seven_?” That seemed wrong—it had been ten, maybe ten thirty at the latest when he’d gone downstairs, and then— _how long had he been asleep?_

“Yeah. Are you going to make me do all the work, kid?”

Harry helped Sirius shift the dresser up to the rug, then slipped his much smaller body between it and the wall and tried to help push. It wouldn't budge. They moved, trying to get both Harry and Sirius pushing, then pulling—but Sirius quickly gave up, pulled his wand out, and levitated the dresser back into place. "Honestly, are you keeping bricks in there?"

"There's books in the bottom drawer," Harry admitted. Lily had tried to make him keep the books stored in the library, where she said they could be kept orderly, but Harry enjoyed reading into the late hours of the night, and, being a child frequently woken by bad dreams, liked to have options on hand to distract himself with.

"Ugh," said Sirius. "You and Remus are both mental. Books?"

They made their way up the stairs, passing by the library on the mezzanine where Holly was sprawled on the floor playing Nintendo, and up another level to Sirius’ and Remus’ room. It had been Sirius’ parents, he had told Harry, but Remus downright rejected staying in the room that teenage Sirius had plastered with scantily-clad muggles. So they had completely gutted thesuite, and Sirius had dug into the Black vaults in order to replace the outer wall with floor-to-ceiling magical windows looking out on a forest somewhere, like they’d done with the kitchen ceiling.

Remus was reclining on the bed—reading, of course—when they came through the door. “Oh,” he said, dropping the book to his lap. “Hello, Harry. Feeling better? You told him, right, Sirius?”

“Of course I told him,” said Sirius. “But he’d already broken an unbreakable mirror, and moved an impossibly heavy dresser without magic.”

“Really?” Remus said. “How did you break the mirror, Harry? We tried to get the irritable one out of the loo up here when Sirius was fixing it up, but had to settle for a silencing charm…”

“I punched it,” said Harry.

Remus blinked at him, but, in a most un-Remus-like response, cracked a smile. “You know, your dad broke his hand on one of the mirrors in our dorm by punching it. Even when we all tried _reparo,_ there was still a long crack going through. I wonder if the urge runs in the family.”

“Well, let’s hope Harry didn’t break his hand,” said Sirius. “Do we still have those bandages in there?”

Remus sat up. “You’re hurt.”

Harry held up his swollen, multicolored hand sheepishly. “I mean, it could be worse. I thought the glass would shatter, and that—that would’ve probably been bad.”

“Decisively so,” Remus agreed, swinging his legs off the bed to hurry into the bathroom.

Sirius conjured up a few extra armchairs by the window wall, and waved Harry off towards them before following Remus. Harry sighed and sat down. He should have known Remus would be alarmed—his hand looked a lot worse than it felt.

“Sirius, have you—”

Harry looked over his shoulder and saw Lily in the doorway. She stared back, mouth frozen open before she forced it shut in what he imagined was supposed to be a friendly smile. “Harry, love. Feeling better?”

Harry’s uncles came out of the bathroom, looked at each other, and split, Remus carrying the roll of bandages towards Harry while Sirius faced Lily. “Did you need something?” Sirius said, his voice sounding strangely cold.

“Oh, nothing important,” said Lily, stepping into the room and towards Harry. “Is someone hurt?”

“Harry just bruised his hand a bit,” said Sirius. “Nothing important. Can you tell Hols the room’s open?”

“Harry?” said Lily, ignoring Sirius and stepping closer. Harry felt his shoulders stiffen and lift towards his ears, and that dark feeling that had burned in his stomach that morning was rising up into his throat. “Let me—”

“ _Don’t touch me.”_

The words left Harry before he could even realize what he was saying, and Lily stepped back, mouth and eyes wide. The hand she had reached out towards him pulled back to her chest, and for once his mother looked very small. Harry blinked, but he wasn’t going to stand down. The thought of his mum healing his hand like nothing had happened between them made him feel sick.

“I’ll go get Hollis off the games,” she said after a long moment, her voice a shell of what it had been before, and she turned to flee the room.

“Can I have your hand?” Remus asked, when her footsteps had disappeared down the stairs. Harry felt like a punctured balloon deflating. Remus handled his hand gingerly, making Harry really look at it. The bruise had spread out from his knuckles and swelling fingers towards his wrist. “You’re lucky your fingers aren’t too damaged, though…”

Pain flared, making Harry’s vision blur white. He must have yelped, because Sirius was at his shoulder in a heartbeat. “Are you alright?”

“His index finger must be jammed,” said Remus. “Hopefully nothing worse.”

“Well, stop poking it! You’ll make worse!”

“Sirius, I barely brushed it. Hand me the cream?”

Sirius passed Remus a vial Harry hadn’t realized he had been carrying, which was filled with a thick green gel that looked like viscous jade. Remus uncorked it and tilted the vial over Harry’s hand, so it slipped out onto his finger.

When the gel hit his skin, it was as though his hand had been turned into a sandwich baggy filled with cool water. The pain that had been burning was doused, and the swelling seemed to be no more than extra air. In the sudden clarity Harry realized the extent of the pain he had been ignoring. He blinked, watching some of the bruising retreat as Remus’ gentle hands spread the gel around.

“Okay,” he said faintly. “Maybe it was worse than I thought.”

“Naw,” said Sirius, his voice strained high. “It’s not too bad. You should see when quiddich players get hit full-on by bludgers. There’s an injury to wince at.”

“He’s just trying to avoid reality,” said Remus. “Which is that he should have brought this up here the moment he realized you were hurt.”

“Um, aren’t I the one to blame for that?” Harry pointed out. “I mean, I was the one who hurt it, and that was ages ago, and it’s my hand, anyways…”

“No, Harry,” said Remus. He picked up the bandage and started wrapping it around Harry’s hand, forming a beige mitten.

“You’re not to blame at all. I don’t think it was your goal to hurt yourself, and either way, you’re not to blame for being injured. But we’re supposed to be taking care of you, kid,” Sirius agreed as Remus wrapped. He ruffled Harry’s hair. “How ‘bout I grab you something to eat? Chow mein sound good? Or something else?”

“Chow mein is fine,” said Harry. Anything to get Sirius’ hand away from his hair. “And maybe an apple?”

“Sure thing.”

Remus tucked the end of the bandage in, and Harry took back his hand. The gel's soothing effect was starting to wear off already, but the bandaged was one of Lily’s, so the pain only came back as a dull ache. "Harry," Remus said softly. "Are you alright? Really? You're not one to get angry like that."

Harry set his hand in his lap, turning to look out the window. Between the dark trees, he could just make out a deer walking in the distance. “I’m just sick of it,” he mumbled. “Her trying to control everything. I—I just want to be me. Not have to carry around my whole life like a secret.”

“I know what you mean,” said Remus, just as softly. “And Harry—I want to warn you, because you’re a mature boy, and I don’t think it would help at all to say otherwise: it’s not going to get easier. Anywhere you go as Harry Potter, you’re going to have to tuck yourself away and put on the Boy Who Lived face. Anywhere you go as James, you’re going to see the differences between who you are and who you’re pretending to be, clearer than ever.”

“How am I supposed to live like that?” Harry demanded. “How is anyone?”

“You learn to bear it,” said Remus. “The alternative is worse.” He paused, and laughed softly. “Of course, you end up finding people you can really trust and care about. And they make all the difference.”

Harry tilted his head. He had thought—vaguely, in the sort of ‘fill-in-the-gap’ type way he was prone to doing when the adults were not saying things—that Remus was referring to his and Sirius’ relationship. According to Lily, for the most their sort of relationship was frowned upon by magical society; though it was completely ridiculous for anyone to be cruel to someone for being in love, of course, it was something that happened and Sirius and Remus had to keep their relationship mostly undefined for the sake of Sirius' job and both their safety. But that didn’t seem to be what Remus was referring to. “You mean Sirius, right?” he asked.

“Sirius, and your dad, and your mum, of course,” Remus said. “Oh, but what am I talking about? Come on, Harry, we had better make sure Sirius hasn’t broken the microwave again.”

“He just ran away because he was flustered,” Harry pointed out. “He’s probably not even gotten the food out of the fridge.”

“Probably not,” Remus agreed. They headed down the stairs. Harry tensed a bit in front of the library door, but neither his sister nor Lily were there. “You know,” Remus continued, “When you were a baby, Sirius was absolutely useless. Any time anything went slightly wrong, he and your dad would panic, leaving Lily and I to clean up the mess or burp you or get you to stop crying.”

Harry rolled his eyes, though he could feel his cheeks pink at the thought of himself as a baby. “He was that way with Holly, too. Remember when she fell off my broom?”

Remus laughed. Sirius had given Harry a broom that would hover a few feet off the ground, and when Holly was two she’d tried to use it. Holly didn’t have the natural sense of balance that Harry did, though, and even though the broom was designed for safety she had still managed to fall off. “He just about screamed as loud as she did,” said Remus.

“Who did?” asked Sirius, as they came into the kitchen. He was holding a plate of chow mein, which appeared to be cold, and an apple already sat at Harry’s place at the table.

“You,” said Remus, walking over as Sirius set down the plate to kiss his cheek. “We were remembering when Holly fell of the broom.”

“Harry,” said Sirius, a bit too quickly. “Here’s your chow mein, and the apple. I couldn’t get the stupid my-crow-wave to work, so—” He pulled his wand out an waved it vaguely, sending a bolt of red light at the plate. The noodles, absorbing the light, started to smoke, though they didn’t appear to be on fire. “Well,” said Sirius dubiously, poking one of them. “They’re probably fine.”

Harry shrugged and sat down. Remus went into the cooking area and came back with a can of coke, three wine glasses, and a bottle of red.

“Why did dad punch the mirror?” Harry asked after Remus poured their drinks. He liked the way Remus always put his coke or juice in a wine glass. Sometimes he did it for Holly, too, but not nearly as often as he did for Harry.

“What?” Sirius asked.

“Rem said dad broke his hand punching a mirror. Why?”

Remus picked up his glass and swirled the wine around in it. The bottle was something muggle, from the logo, which was clearly a digital production, so he had probably brought it home from work. Remus always preferred to provide things himself, Harry had noticed. It seemed rather odd, that they lived in this big house and Lily and Sirius clearly had the money to help Remus out, yet he always refused if they tried to buy things for him outside of his birthday or Christmas.

"It was fifth year," he said. "So it was probably something with your mum. I don't really remember."

"No," said Sirius, "It was after she fought with Snivellus."

“What?” Remus frowned, tilting his head to one side. “I think I would remember, if it were that.”

“A few days after,” Sirius insisted. “When he tried to ask her out again. He’d been on top of the world, since then, remember?”

“Oh, you mean when he had assumed—and she called him a right git.”

“Mum called dad a git?” It was strange; mostly when they talked about his parents’ relationship it was after they’d left Hogwarts, when they were married and a pair of inseparable lovebirds. But when they talked about their time in school, it was hard to imagine they’d end up that way, from how his dad was always trying and failing to impress Lily. It was like a terrible romantic comedy, where everything his dad did seemed to make him fall flat on his face.

“Too many times,” Lily said from the cellar door. “But he deserved it. He was such a brat at that age.”

 

 

24. 

 

Harry picked up his fork and poked the chow mein. It didn’t look so bad, and it had stopped smoking, so that was good. Lily took the seat next to Remus on the other side of the table, and topped off the men’s wine before taking a swig straight from the bottle. “And you’re still not allowed to call him Snivellus, Sirius. He has a proper name.”

“Come on, Lily,” Sirius whined. “He’s even an worse git than we’d ever thought, he said it himself. Remus, back me up.”

“I’m with Lily. Name-calling is just as immature now as it used to be. And there’s no need to stoop to being a git yourself, love.”

“Don’t call me love, you traitor.”

“Who’s Snivellus?” Harry asked.

“Severus Snape,” his mum answered. “A friend of mine, when we were younger. The first person with magic I met. He teaches potions at Hogwarts.”

Sirius snorted. “Teaches is a very generous term, as I’ve heard it.”

“Fine. He glares disapprovingly while everyone else fails to follow unspecified instructions.” She took another swig of wine. “Either way, he was my friend, and James failed to understand how I could associate with Severus over him. But James was a spoiled brat, up until he was what, sixteen? Seventeen?”

“After you moved in with him, Sirius,” Remus said. “I think that’s when he started to get his head on straight.”

“We probably all did, around then,” said Sirius. Remus patted his hand, and Harry saw it stay there, resting on top of his other uncle’s.

“Sirius, your head will never be straight, love.”

“Then neither will yours.”

Lily cleared her throat, took another drink, and set down the bottle. She crossed her arms and leaned forward on the table, looking directly at her son. "So, Harry," she said. "Sirius told you that I'm willing to let you go to Hogwarts."

"Yes," Harry said. He knew what was coming was the If. There always was an If, when she was trying to play herself as giving someone what they wanted.

“If,” she said, “You can prove to me you’ll be able to keep that you’re Harry Potter a secret.”

“So what am I supposed to be, then?” Harry asked. “The whole ‘James’ thing works in France, sure, but who exactly is going to look at me, hear the name James, and not think of dad?”

"Well," she said. "If it's too difficult, you don't have to."

Harry glared at her and dug into his noodles. They tasted slightly smoky, but otherwise were basic overly-greasy takeout Chinese.

"So," she continued on. "You'll go as _Jamie_ Jeannot at school. And you're going to be Sirius' nephew--his actual, if illegitimate, nephew."

Jamie. Like that was so different from James.

"You want to pretend like Regulus had a kid?" Sirius said. "No offense, Lily, but he died when he was eighteen."

"Which would put him at having just enough time, in his post-graduation trip to France ,to make a bad decision with a local girl and end up with an illegitimate son."

"It could work," said Remus thoughtfully. "After all, since you're Harry's secondary guardian, Sirius, any genealogy charm would put him as attached to the Black family, but not as part of the main line. That's about as detailed as I know of."

"What about Holly?" Harry asked. "She'll go to Hogwarts too, right?"

“Of course,” said Lily. It made Harry slightly angry that she answered without hesitation, as though there’d never been any question about the matter, but Holly wouldn’t have to fight to get to Hogwarts the way he did. That was definitely a good thing. “She’ll be your half-sister, though. This will take a bit of work with a mixed polyjuice, and maybe we’ll change your nose, because we’ll need to make it seem you got your looks from me, but as long as you keep the scar disguised and don’t start messing up your hair, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Like that’d ever happen,” Harry muttered. He’d seen the pictures of his dad in school. Apparently he had thought that having a bird-nest atop his head was somehow cool. Though Harry's hair was naturally as wiry as his dad's had been, he found it's natural look absolutely ridiculous, especially when it was the matter of a potion his mum could easily brew for him to change the texture. This was especially useful when considering that several magazines over the years had tried to use photos of James as stand-ins for photos of Harry, which simply did not exist, so everyone expected him to look even more like his dad than he did—identical, even. It was how they got away with traveling so much.

“Well, it’s not going to be like going to school in France, Harry,” Lily said. “You’ll be living at Hogwarts. That means you won’t be coming home in the evenings or flooing here to Grimmauld Place on weekends. Every hour of every day, you will have to be living as Jamie. No one can ever know otherwise.”

“But why not?” Harry asked. “Why can’t I just go as Harry?”

She opened her mouth, but got caught up in staring at him and then had to take a swig of the wine. She set the bottle back aside and folded her hands. “Because it isn’t safe,” she said simply. “Albus Dumbledore is a shrewd chess master. He knows You-Know-Who will be back, and he’d leap at the chance to sink his claws in to you, I guarantee it. You won’t even know you’ve been used until he’s sent you to your grave. If you go, you’re going to have to do everything you can to keep away from that man, Harry. He can never know who you are.”

“I’m going,” Harry said firmly. “I don’t care if I have to take polyjuice every morning. I’m going.”

“Then you’re going as Jamie.”

“Shouldn’t he use a different name?” Sirius asked. “Like he said, it’s so close to ‘James’…”

Remus shook his head. “Harry’s used to being James. It’s much easier to pass when you respond to a name automatically, and no matter how hard you try, you sometimes just don’t register pseudonyms. It’s a dead giveaway.”

“But what did Dumbledore do, mum?” Harry asked, ignoring his uncles. He wanted answers, not to let them sidetrack the conversation, or he would never know. “You’re always on about him, but I don’t know _why,_ do I?”

Lily sighed. She pulled out her wand and waved it at the ceiling. Nothing happened right away, but she seemed unbothered. “You know what happened to James,” she said, matter of fact, because she had made sure of that. Harry let his head tilt a bit, so the frames of his glasses crossed his vision right in front of her eyes. “You know that everyone thought that Sirius was our secret keeper. Dumbledore was the one who set the _fidelius_ for us, originally.”

“But you changed it,” Harry said.

“Yes, but—”

She was cut off by the door opening. Across the kitchen sailed something silvery and formless, what looked to Harry eerily similar to the liquid of a pensive. Lily caught it and for a moment seemed lost in stroking the strange cloth. When Harry tried to lean forward, to get a better look at the runes that seemed to shimmer on the surface, she stood. “The _fidelius_ wasn’t our only line of defense, of course,” she said. As she spoke, she swung the cloth out behind her, and it seemed to wrap around her body—but it was hard to tell, for where it covered, her body disappeared. Harry blinked. It was like looking at a section of a photograph cut out and dropped into another. The edges were impossible, but they still were. That was magic.

“An invisibility cloak?” he asked.

“It’s been in James’ family for ages,” Sirius provided. “You should have seen the trouble we caused…”

“Thank you, Sirius,” Lily said harshly, and took it off again. She sat, playing with the cloth in her hands again. “There were several other levels of protection, of course,” she continued. “But this was our last line of defense. When Dumbledore set the _fidelius_ , James happened to show it to him. He got very peculiar then, and asked if he might borrow it to run some tests on the charms, just for a few days."

"So... it wasn't there on Halloween," said Harry.

"Exactly," said Lily.

"But are you trying to say that was intentional?" Harry asked. "Because I mean, if Dumbledore really wanted You-Know-Who to be able to get to you, then there would have probably been easier ways."

"It doesn't matter whether it was intentional," said his mum. "It does matter that he felt no guilt whatsoever over the fact that he had the cloak."

"Lily, you don't know that for sure," Remus pointed out. "And he did try to apologize."

"Which he doubled up with a plan to use Harry as some sort of pawn for his political schemes!"

"Wait, what?" Harry asked.

Sirius was the one to answer, this time. "Remember the Misitry Gala? Fudge hosted that to get more political support, which Dumbledore was also interested in. He wanted us to raise you in the public eye," he said. "He said it was unfortunate that your life would be like this, but if Lily and you would support him, he could gain more power with the Wizengamot."

"So, what, he could become minister?" Harry asked. He wasn't sure how the elections for Minister for Magic worked, let alone the structure of the Wizengamot, but he was sure they were tied somehow.

"Probably not," his mum said. "No, more likely he would have wanted someone who would go along with his political plans. Dumbledore doesn't like to do things directly, you see. He likes to send other people to do the dirty work, as though he has the right to judge whose life is valuable and whose is not."

Harry took another bite of chow mein, and chewed it slowly, pondering the way his mum was framing the man. "I don't get it," he said at last. "Isn't everyone's goal in politics to get someone whose politics agree with theirs in power?"

"When you give a man like Dumbledore power, he thinks he has an inherent right to use it," said Lily. "He was the head of the Order of the Pheonix, the group that was battling Voldemort. And Harry, I don't mean to paint any one of us as a devil or a saint: it was war, and choices are difficult. Somehow you have to balance protecting those closest to you and trying to fight for the greater good. It's not easy."

She paused long enough to drink more wine, and hurried on, her words becoming rushed onto each other. "Dumbledore lacks caution. You would think, after he lost so many people to poorly timed battles and ill-executed strategies that he would have learned. But he just kept pushing people forward. He doesn’t stop to let people breathe…"

“The Finns were first,” Sirius said.

“The Finns?”

Remus sighed. His and Sirius’ hands had flipped, so his was against the table, and Sirius gave his a squeeze. “They had a little girl,” Remus said. “She would have been a few years older than you. But Mrs. Finn was muggle, and Mr. Finn had insulted Bellatrix Lestrange to her face. Dumbledore thought he could use Mr. Finn to provoke her, but…”

Sirius hissed into his wine. “My bitch cousin. She was the one who got Reg in with the bad crowd. And she was the one to get the Longbottoms—not to mention Roberta McKane…”

“The point is,” said Lily, “Dumbledore made miscalculations that got people killed, and instead of learning from them, instead of showing any guilt or remorse, he kept sending everyone else charging headfirst into danger, while he was safely behind the lines. Oh, he’d fight if someone cursed him, but no one ever got close enough, did they?”

“So... why is he running Hogwarts, then?” Harry asked. “If he wants political power? I mean, it’s a school.”

"Young minds are impressionable," said Remus, as though that cleared anything up.

"No matter what, you can't give him any power over you, Harry," Lily said. "Dumbledore has to _believe_ that you are not Harry Potter. And—well, it would be better if you, as Jamie Jeannot, wanted nothing to do with Harry Potter. Obviously, as Sirius' nephew, you would know yourself, like a cousin, maybe. But we don't want to give Dumbledore a reason to try to use you to get to you."

"That makes no sense," Sirius grumbled. "He has to dislike himself so he won't be used against himself?"

"Exactly,” said Lily. "There's nothing strange about the concept, what aren't you getting?"

Harry and Sirius shared matching blank looks. "Well,” said Remus. “That was the most jumbled use of pronouns I've heard in a while."

"Your sister should be safe," said Lily, carrying on and ignoring his uncles. "We've done very well at making sure no one knows that she exists. If she's Jamies' half-sister, there's absolutely no reason anyone should be interested in her."

"That's just mean," said Sirius. "Of course people have reason to be interested in Holly. She's a wonderful, sweet girl."

"And a brat," Harry muttered, but he agreed with Sirius. When she wasn't being a brat, Holly was much sweeter than most of the girls her age, at least back at the muggle school, and he couldn’t imagine anyone being anything _but_ interested in her.

"Well, if you do end up being two years ahead of her, I expect you to be keeping an eye out for her," said Lily.

"If?" Sirius asked. "Isn't that the plan?"

"Yes," said Lily, "But if something goes wrong, we'll have to pull Harry out, of course."

Harry blinked, and jabbed at a piece of what was probably tofu. Of course she would have something to hang over his head like that.

"Enough of that!" Remus said suddenly, standing up with a smile. "Harry, would you care for a game of chess?"

"Sure," said Harry, standing up. He hadn't even gotten close to finishing the chow mein, but it wasn't much of a waste, considering the smoky flavor. He carried it to the kitchen proper, dumping the extra into the trash and putting the dish in the washer.

"At this hour?" Lily asked. The wine bottle was nearly empty by now, and she swirled the last of it around the bottom.

"He wasn’t out most of the day," Sirius pointed out. "So now's a good a time as any."

"Alright," Lily said dubiously, before downing the rest of the wine and standing up as well. "You should be going back to bed, though.”

As Harry walked by to join Remus at the door, Lily reached out to him. Harry flinched away. He didn't want contact with her. He hurried up the stairs as quickly as he could, leaving his mother staring after him.

 

22. 

 

Holly sat down on the chair her brother favored in the library. She turned, trying to put her legs up over the armrest the way he always did, but she couldn’t understand how he thought that was comfortable. It squished her legs up into her stomach and her chin down into her chest, and the armrest did not quite line up with her legs properly when she folded them. She gave up and swiveled, her legs running straight up the back of the chair and her head hanging back down off the front edge of the cushion.

It was just after six thirty. Mum had sent her to the library after dinner, but without Harry it was not that interesting. Unlike her brother, Holly’s interest in reading lasted about five minutes before she got bored. Normally, she could pause and pester her brother, but he had to go lock himself in their room, didn’t he?

Besides, except for the two bookshelves Harry and Remus had filled, most of the books in the Black library weren’t fiction, which meant she was supposed to ask her mum before reading them. But mum was in one of those distracted moods, and that made her unpredictable. When they’d gone out shopping, at the first store it had been useful, because she hadn’t looked twice at what Holly was choosing. Normally she’d only let Holly get one t-shirt; this time she’d got _three._ But then at the next store, she’d flat-out rejected a skirt for having sequins on it, and then when the shopkeeper had commented on how cute one of the others she’d chosen, Mum had pulled her out of the store in a rage. So if she asked Mum about reading a book, she might not care, or she might set Holly cleaning her potions lab. Unlike Harry, she wasn’t allowed to touch the ingredients, except to scrub them off the floors.

She could play the Nintendo, except like the books it just wasn’t as interesting. So instead she flopped over the chair and moped.

No one would tell her _why_ Harry was angry. All she knew was that he’d set off stupid Walpurga for a good half hour while Mum had locked herself in the cellar to get their potions ready, and then when they’d gone shopping she had only said that Harry was throwing a tantrum. Well, that was obvious. Half of London had probably heard him shouting. No, half of Europe. She hadn’t seen him that angry since… since…

“Holly,” Rem said, sticking head through the door of the library. He looked really tired, but he always looked tired, so it’s not like that was odd. “Did you get enough to eat?”

She nodded, then rolled off the chair so she could see him properly. “Is Harry out yet?”

“No,” he said, his smile breaking. “But we’re going to have a talk with your mum.”

“What did she do?” Holly asked. Remus opened his mouth, closed it again, and went back to smiling again. It was a poor apology.

“You’ll have to ask Harry later,” he said. “It’s not really my place…”

“That’s stupid,” Holly said. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Siri wouldn’t tell me either.”

“Sorry, Hols.”

Remus went away, and Holly pouted some more. But then she got an idea, and crept over to the door. She would have to move very slowly to not creak the stairs, but if her mum and uncles were having a chat, she wanted to hear.

She could hear them by the time she reached the landing outside of their room. She went down to the first mezzanine and stuck her head out through the bars of the railing, leaning forwards so she could see down to the ground floor and open door, and maybe hear a bit better.

_“I’m trying to keep him safe!”_

That was mum. Holly didn’t really understand the whole Boy Who Lived thing, because no one would ever explain it to her, and since Harry thought it was all a joke anyhow she couldn’t really ask him. All she really knew was that it involved someone called You-Know-Who, which was a useless name because she _didn’t_ know who. And somehow it had to do with her dad being dead, and somehow it meant that Harry had to be protected and even though she was Holly Potter she had to go as Holly Jeannot.

“Lily, you can’t protect him forever.”

She didn't think she’d heard Remus’ voice that loud since the time he’d yelled at Harry for jumping off the mezzanine landing. Mum, however, seemed to take it in stride—“He’s just a boy, Remus.”

“That doesn’t mean you can lock him up forever!” Remus shouted. “You can’t keep him away from the world. The more you try to hide him, the harder it’s going to be, when _he_ returns.”

“You think we’re just going to stay here?” Mum snapped. “I’m not going to leave my son to be caught up in things. The first sign of change, we’re gone, Remus. You know that.”

“So you’re going to keep him shut away in the mean time, just in case?”

“Lily,” Sirius cut in, “Try to be reasonable. He’s waited his whole life for this, and James would have—”

“You’re _not_ his father, Sirius!”

“Well neither are you!”

There was a long silence. Holly leaned as far in as she could, her shoulders pressed up against the bars of the railing, in case they were saying something quiet, but they weren’t. It was just silent.

This conversation was doing nothing to clear up her confusion. It was obvious that Sirius wasn’t Harry’s dad, and it was even more obvious that Mum wasn’t. Were they talking about hiding in France—or _Hogwarts?_ Yes—that was it—it was obvious, really. Mum didn’t want Harry to go to Hogwarts. Why, Holly couldn’t imagine—but that had to be it. What else could have possibly made Harry so angry?

The realization hit her with a spark somewhere between dread and relief. _Harry, I don’t want you to go._ Well, she was getting her wish, wasn’t she? She wouldn’t be stuck with just mum and her moods for two years, but Harry would hate her forever, if her wish was to blame…

“Lily,” said Remus, breaking the silence. “I—I’m with Sirius. I don’t know we knew him better, but we knew James longer, and he would never have kept Harry back. There are charms, and precautions, and _ways_ , Lily. You think we don’t want him safe? You think I don’t understand?”

 _Let him go,_ Holly thought as fiercely as she could. Maybe she couldn’t do magic the way Harry could, and maybe none of them listened to her but just this once— _Let him go!_

“Fine,” Lily said. Her voice was shrill. “Fine! You want him to go to that—that _place_ so bad? Fine. Can you promise me he’ll be safe?”

“Lily—”

“Can you?”

Sirius was the one to answer. “You give the kid too little credit. He’s your son, and James’. He’ll make it work. You want him to go as James? He’ll go as James. You want him to hide under the cloak and go to school as the invisible kid? _He’ll make it work._ ”

“He’ll go as James, if he goes at all,” Mum says. Holly can barely hear it, turning her whole body to squeeze a little more. If she were Harry, she’d find a way to magic her way forward, but he was the one who could find a way to do anything he wanted. She was with Sirius: Harry could handle—whatever it was Mum wanted of him. He always had.

“Fine,” said Sirius.

“And you’ll take time out of your evenings to talk to him about being undercover, Remus.”

“Me? I’m not sure—”

“Remus.”

“Of course, Lily, but—”

“And you’ll convince him that it’s important?”

“Why me?”

“He listens to you. If you had told him he couldn't go—there would be none of this.”

“I would never tell him that. There’s always a way, Lily. _Dumbledore_ proved that to me.”

There was another long silence, then Sirius said—“I’ll go tell him, then.”

“Fine,” said Lily.

Holly’s breath caught, and she tried to pull her head back, but her chin hit the bars. Sirius came out through the door and seemed to look up at her right away. He stared for a moment, but his hard face broke into a slight smile, and he waved his hand slightly. “There’s still some of dinner left, right? He’s probably hungry.”

Whatever the response was, Holly didn't hear it, because she was too busy extracting her head and running back up the stairs. At least it was Sirius, not Remus, she thought as she fell back into the chair. Remus would have told Mum, but Sirius would keep quiet. After a moment, she turned on the TV and Nintendo, just in time for Remus to pass the door on his way back up.

So Harry would go to Hogwarts, she thought, heart beating fast as it sank. He would leave her behind, all alone in the manor in France, the ocean between them only more literal than the ocean between Holly and the rest of the world.

She swallowed the feeling that was choking up her throat, and started a new game. Two years, then she could go to school herself. She’d prove it—she didn’t need him, if he didn’t need her. He was only her brother.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less of a roller-coaster ride this time, perhaps?
> 
> Thank you all for keeping up with this story, and I'm glad you're enjoying it. Unfortunately, this marks the point where my updating schedule is going to get a bit less consistent. I'm going to aim to update at least every other week, what with finals and, after that, the mad dash to apply for internships, and hopefully at some points it will come after only one week, but I may have to take a hiatus if the school/work/writing overlap is too much. I will try to update on Sundays still, since that seems to be working for me.
> 
> Thank you all so much. Until next time!


	9. What is Written on the Heart, Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I've noticed that section numbers keep deleting themselves when I upload on here. They aren't... incredibly necessary, but they do help clear up when we switch sections, so at some point I'll be going back to fix them. Sorry about that, I think I've figured out how to fix it... hopefully.  
> 2) If anything, you can take this story as a lesson in how not to parent.

_0_

_He isn’t sure when the dream started, and the more years pass, the more he begins to wonder if it will ever end._

_There are variations, of course. Sometimes he is alone, sometimes he is with his sister, or his mother, or the memories she implanted to create his other mother. But it is always the same dream—somewhere, a reflection, a question, an answer, a lie._

_But one dream is different. It is the one that sticks out most in his mind, the one he cannot remember; like a mole on the back of his neck, he knows it is there, but can never see._

_A cliff, overlooking the overcast sea. Perhaps it is the memory of Chile, but it is a dream, and behind him is only a void—a different kind of void than the endless watery expanse._

_If there is a reflection, it is only in his heart. If there is a question, it has never been spoken._

I know who I am.

_She is suddenly standing beside him, or maybe she’s been there all along. Neither turns, but he can see her face, clear as though it were etched in his eyelids, as though it were his mother’s face, his sister’s face—and it was, but it wasn’t._

I know who I am.

_She smiles, soft, but it is a terrible sort of gentle, one that might break at too forceful a push. He watches the sea, gulls drifting on the breeze, as she takes his hand. She is older than he, in body, taller in his peripheral vision, but her hand feels small._

_“Who are you?” he asks._

_She squeezes his hand, weaving her fingers with his, and does not answer. “You don’t have to know who you are just yet,” she says. “You are the world that makes you, the events and people that have shaped your life…”_

_Lightning plays in the distant storm clouds, lighting the sky with green. The gulls glide and shriek. Now it is his hand that is small, folded inside hers._

I know who I am.

_“…but in the end, you are who you decide to be.”_

_Ahead of them, one of the circling gulls seems to loose track of the wind, and drops like a stone into the ocean below._

_“Who are you?” he asks her._

_“I can’t help you,” she says._

_He turns, and studies her face, the gentle angles and dark curls. Her appearance has him trapped in the limbo of déjà vu, and clearly she knows him as he feels he knows her, but where the memory should be is nothing but empty space._

_“I know who I am,” he says._

_She’s smiling, but it still doesn’t reach her eyes._

_The gull bursts out of the water below, spiraling up and up and shedding fragments of the sea behind it. He looks back, and she’s gone, or maybe she was gone all along._

_“I know who I am,” he says._

_The gull’s head twists, round and round, a broken owl’s. “Who?” it cries as the wind picks up. “Who?”_

__  
  


 

 

25

 

There is a house in Godric’s Hollow that was built far more recently than the rest. It stands, unassuming, in its own little lot, and people walk by without paying it much mind, but the windows are clear and the bricks are all in place and the picket fence remains bright with paint where the others are weathered and mute. Still, it is its own piece of history, its own thread in a timeless cycle. It is young, but it is old. The way it is meant to be.

Godric’s Hollow is a smallish village, with only a few hundred residents, give or take. Despite this, it is and always has been one of the most densely populated villages in all of Britain, in terms of its magical population.

In one sense, there has always been a Godric’s Hollow, long before its namesake Godric Gryffindor was so much as a thought. In another, there has never been a Godric’s Hollow, for you will not find it on any map or listed in any phone book.

It is a place that is happened upon by chance. No one ever intends to find Godric’s Hollow, to become a part of it, but once you are there, there is a piece of you that _becomes_. You leave, you return. The way they always do.

The house in Godric’s Hollow that is newer than the rest is was built in a return. The house that had stood in its place before had been old, filled with memories and stories to be told, history sewn in the mortar and foundation. It was destroyed with sudden violence, terrible and great, and all that history seemed to seep up from the stones and linger in the air. It was, and it wasn’t. The way it had come to be.

And when Lily Potter, returning to the ruins for the first time, had seen the wreckage, her first impulse had not been to scream or cry. She had thought it would be, but it was not. She looked at the blackened rubble, sanctuary violated by violence and desecrated by the resulting waves in the tumultuous ocean of a fringe society, and she thought it strange, that where a house had stood before there was now only rubble and air, empty and full.

James Potter had been born in that house; her son had been born in that house; her daughter, conceived. She had come in search of clarity, and left never intending to return, but her mind was already swimming with half-formed plans and a nagging urge, and later, when she reached paper, her fragmented ideas took shape into something as solid in her mind as the cornerstones of the Earth. She wrote, she schemed; she planned until the blueprints were set. It was rough, but it was gold. The way it would be.

Five years later, a boy stood in the room on the top floor, staring out the window towards the roundabout below, not sure whether it was something to remember or forget. He had been told he had been born in this house, though he questioned that it was the same house, now that it had been rebuilt. Eleven-year-olds had a knack of thinking that way, and especially him. It would be a long time before he would think otherwise.

He had also been told that he was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, but then he had been told he was just a boy, after all. He had been told his father had died in this house, but also that, no matter what happened, he would always be safe here. He looked around the room, with quiddich posters on the walls and muggle books filling the shelves, and saw the evidence that said he belonged. But here he was, leaving again, and after three short weeks feeling a strange homesickness for a country that he was told he did not belong to and a longing for a place he had never been, he felt no regret. Not yet.

He rubbed his forehead for the umpteenth time, wishing away the headache that was dampening his mood. He was leaving—to Hogwarts!—but his head felt like it had a motor strapped to it, shaking and rattling his brain about his skull. Remus worried it might be a side effect of Lily’s plan.

 _Mind magics are a dangerous thing, Harry,_ he’d written. _Be sure to talk to your mother about these headaches if they keep happening. She’s a healer; she can help._

He hadn’t, of course. If Lily knew anything was less than perfect in her plan—and Merlin knows why her plan included mind magics and false memories—she wouldn’t take a second to decide he couldn’t go after all. It had been nothing short of a miracle that she had changed her mind after all, even if—

“ _Jamie_ ,” Lily called up the stairs. “Jamie, are you coming?”

Harry—Jamie—the boy sighed and turned away from the window. He felt he was floating through space that did not belong to him. There were traces, of course. He had slept in that bed, and the gouge in the doorframe was where he had hit the corner of his box of books. But it was like being shown a picture he did not remember being taken. There was proof, physical evidence, but the place was not yet written on his heart, and he could not wait to leave.

He crossed the room to where a wicker basket sat on the floor and took off his glasses, dropping them in. They had been his father’s glasses, but today, though he took his father’s name and left his father’s house, he did not feel like his father’s son. That was good, he supposed; he was not supposed to feel like the child of James Potter. But knowing it was good did not seem to help.

The world blurred around him, and he felt more at ease.

He turned back around, facing the blue shape that was the bed, and regarded the large white smudge that sat on it.

_“Jamie!”_

It was the family cat, in theory, the beast that normally hid in his mother’s bedroom or slunk off out of the house until it got too hungry or lazy for rats to suffice. He could imagine its orange-eyed stare, tail flickering as lids and pupils narrowed on a squashed face.  His uncle likened it to the devil in beast form. “Why won’t you ever just behave?”

_“Harry?”_

“Coming!” he finally shouted back. He eyed the creature, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt down over his hands. “I did warn you,” he told the cat at last, and lunged.

 

 

26

 

“Jamie,” Lily said as her son came down the stairs, finally. “We’ll be late. What took you so long?”

The boy sighed and set the hissing basket on the bottom stair. He’d been moody since they had returned to Godric’s Hollow, so that was nothing new, and he looked tired, but in otherwise good health. She quickly took his appearance in, and couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to flatten a few stray hairs. If it weren’t so dire to keep up appearances, she would have long given up the workload that brewing the amount of potion it took to keep her son’s hair contained, but her son had gotten James’ hair, thick and wiry and prone to sticking up in every direction.  Just another on the long lists of ways his disguise could easily fail, the list that made her heart skip beats and her son scowl.

“I’m still _Harry_ ,” he said, neatly dodging her hand to shove his feet into grey trainers. “We haven’t even left the house.”

“Of course you are,” she said soothingly. “But that’s not an answer.”

He rolled his eyes, a gesture exaggerated when he was not wearing his glasses, and picked up the basket again. “Pudge was being uncooperative.”

“You should have put him in his basket earlier.”

“I was busy earlier.”

“Did you tear your sleeve? And where are your glasses?”

“Packed,” he said. He’d have to fix it when he got on the train—Lily had shown him how, and there wasn’t time now. “I don’t need them right now.”

She sighed, but before she could add anything else he’d grabbed the basket at hurried out of the house.

It had been a month and a half, and she’d done her best to earn his renewed favor, but her son had learned to hold his grudges from the best. Once he got to school and fell back into the rhythm of living as Jamie Jeannot, he would start to see reason. Until then—until then it was all she could do to hope he did not blow his cover. She had now seen her son heartbroken, and she did not wish to see him so again.

So she conjured the bottles that she needed to help him and downed them, one after the other, before reaching down to put on her shoes. By the time she had straightened back up, her hair had grown into long curls that fell black around her shoulders. And—yes, in her reflection in the window she could see the way her freckles had spread out across her face, leaving her skin somewhere between Harry’s shade and Hollis’. Her nose had arched and hooked, her cheekbones rose and narrowed, and her eyes were the deep grey she had tailored her children’s to be. She could have been James’ cousin—it was to be expected; her potions were the result of nine years of research focusing on modifying the Polyjuice Potion and other potions specialized in changing appearances, and the materials for this particular disguise had been sourced from her and James’ children.

She set her watch—one of three, the one she had specified to keeping track of the potions she took on a semi-regular basis—and hurried out the door, waving the door locked behind her. Sirius was already settled in behind the wheel, so she climbed in the passenger side, casting a glance back to make sure everything was in order.

“You all right there, Harry? You’re looking a bit peaky.”

“Peaky?” Harry echoed, at the same time as his sister corrected him—“We have to call him _Jamie_ , Siri. Like we did in France.”

“You’ve been spending too much time around Mrs. Bagshot, Sirius,” Lily said. If her son was looking anything but perfectly healthy, it was only in the scowl he had trained on Holly, and, knowing him, that wouldn’t last more than a moment. He could seldom hold any anger against his sister, and over the last few days his excitement for Hogwarts had ruled over any of his other moods. It was, on the one hand, adorable—but on the other, worrying, how excited he was. If worst came to worse and she needed to withdraw him, that sort of emotional attachment wouldn’t bode well for her ability to do what would be necessary.

“Well,” said Sirius brightly, ignoring the three responses directed at him one on top of the other, “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Lily resisted the urge to roll her eyes as Sirius started up the car, a habit Harry had picked up from one of his muggle friends and she from him. The radio, charmed to pick up the broadcast she normally listened to in France, blared briefly before her hand darted out to turn the knob. Sirius raised a brow, and opened his mouth, but he shut it when he met her eyes. She really did not need any of his _snark_ , not today. Not when her barely disguised son was going to be in a group of witches and wizards who would have his blood in a heartbeat, and her hands were shaking against the dial, and—

She checked the rear-view mirror as Sirius pulled them out onto the street. She’d done as much as she could for Harry’s disguise without resorting to more drastic measures. The eyes—that had been years ago, at a price she’d rather not pay again without the direst of needs. Everything else was a matter of contrasting with the image people held of _Harry Potter—_ what they remembered of young James, in other words _._

His skin was a good deal fairer than James had been, luckily, and childhood in the muggle world left her shy of changing it, in any case. But the main elements of his disguise were in his hair, in his scar, and in his mind. She’d spent so many years brewing the potion for her son’s hair, mixing it in with his shampoo and conditioner, she could make it in her sleep—and it had, on many occasions, worked its way into her dreams. Unlike James, who had never done a thing to tame the curls that stuck up in ever direction, her son’s hair was at worst wavy. It was still quite thick, and would stick straight up whenever it got the chance, but it wasn’t curly.

As for the scar—she had faith her son would continue to apply the cream she supplied him with. It was a powerful potion, but the scar was a powerful piece of work. If she had more time, she would have taken him to have it removed. It had been on her mind for a while—treating the scar the muggle way, and using normal anti-scarring treatments on the healing from that. She doubted it would hold back the scar forever; magical injuries had a way of persevering until the exact right treatment could be found.  But a combination between that and the cream…

Well, it was no matter, now. There wasn’t enough time. She would have to trust in the machinations they had laid in place. If Dumbledore should suspect him, he would try—she just knew he would try, the law be damned—to look into his mind, and there he would find evidence of the life of Jamie Jeannot.

She had had to pull a few things—the Ministry Gala, namely, as the most easily identified as a memory that could only possibly be Harry Potter’s—but mostly the work they had done had only been to fill in the gaps. Memories of Liliane Jeannot, overlaid over the true ones, filtered in over where she and Lily Potter could have both have been. Memories of Harry Potter—not of himself, but as the image of another boy, modeled very closely after young James, with the scar ever-so-obvious on his forehead. Memories of little things—quirks like how much Harry Potter irritated Jamie, and how he thought his sister—his half-sister—was the only person he could really consider family, no matter how his mother tried to encourage him to get along with Harry. It was a tenacious balance, of course, but when she tested her theory and looked into her son’s mind, she had been pleased with how far they’d gotten in just that month. Even Dumbledore couldn't dig too far, not if he cared to maintain his appearances of goodness and light. If she knew anything about Dumbledore, he did care—too much.

Sirius tapped her arm, and she realized it was still on the radio knob. They were nearly out of Godric’s Hollow. She pulled back and drew her wand, silently running through the typical charms—disillusions and illusions, glamours and inglamours to hide and create imperfections that were just noticeable enough to be remembered and completely false all the same. A better healer would have chosen a more critical field to focus in than appearances, but her specialization had results applicable beyond mending and hiding disfigurations.

“I can’t believe you’re taking Pudge,” Hollis was saying as Lily slipped away her wand and tucked it back in the holster that ran down her forearm. “He clearly doesn’t want to go with you.”

In the basket, the cat growled. It was to be expected. Pudge was half-kneazel, courtesy of the breeder Arabella Figg, who just so happened to live across from Petunia’s place in Surrey. He’d been running around the Black Manor grounds for years, and though she knew the creature liked her son well enough to keep an eye on him, it most definitely did not like being crammed in a basket.

“And I don’t want to take him, but mum said…” Harry trailed off, finishing clumsily, “And That’s That.”

“It’s mean,” Hollis continued. “Can’t you hear him? He’s so unhappy!”

“I think half of Britain can hear the nasty devil’s yowling,” Sirius commented.

“You just don’t like him because he’s a cat, Siri.”

“Well, yeah,” he agreed. “Mordred spawn.”

The cat’s moaning grew worse, and Lily sighed, turning around and tapping out a drowsiness charm on the top of the basket. It wouldn’t last for long, as the kneazel magic in him would make short work of such a low-intensity charm, but for the moment it quieted him down.

“So,” Sirius said cheerfully, pulling onto the motorway. Lily stretched, cracking the knuckles in her hands. It was a two hour drive to Southampton Station, with Sirius driving, the closest link to King’s Cross, and she was already feeling her patience unraveling in the face of Sirius’ good cheer. “What house do you think you’ll be put in, Harry?”

Lily bit back a sigh. Of course Sirius would ask that. As though everyone he knew who had gone to Hogwarts hadn’t been in Gryffindor. There was no long traditional line to follow—while Charlus Potter had been as Gryffindor as they came, his wife Dorea was Slytherin as they came. A lovely woman, from the way Sirius and James and Remus had always talked about her, but she was the side of the family that encouraged James’ pranking. And then there was herself—muggleborn, no tradition to speak of—and Sirius—who was a break in tradition—and Remus—whose father had been a Ravenclaw and mother a muggle. But Harry had been surrounded by Sirius’ and Remus’ stories his whole life and…

“Harry?” Sirius asked again. Lily glanced in the rearview, as her sun blinked, eyes so wide without his father’s glasses as he turned them from the window.

“What?”

Sirius laughed. “I asked if you think you know which house you’ll be in.”

Harry blinked again.

“Well, of course he’ll be in Gryffindor, if he should like,” said Lily, and opened her mouth to add—

But Hollis cut her off. “I bet he’ll be in Slytherin!” the girl said, a gleeful grin playing across her face. “He’s certainly mean enough.”

“Don’t be a prat,” Harry hissed at her.

“Mum! Harry called me a prat!”

“ _Jamie_ , dear,” Lily corrected, though she was feeling the beginnings of a headache stirring in her forehead. “Jamie, don’t tease your sister. And certainly you don’t mean that people are sorted into Slytherin because they are mean, Hollis.”

Her children stared at her, and Sirius snorted. Lily pinched the bridge of her nose, caught herself doing it, and looked out the window instead, watching fields slip by. “They’re sorted because they are resourceful, clever, and ambitious,” she clarified. “I’ve seen Slytherins talk themselves out of trouble when the professor was a first-hand witness to their actions.”

“So they’re evil, then,” Hollis said, reaching across the seat to poke at her brother’s shoulder. “And if they’re evil, they’re mean.”

Evil? Mean? Well, cruel, definitely, but—

“Something evil would look prettier and feel fouler,” said Harry. It took Lily a moment to realize what he was quoting, though she shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Well, they’re certainly a foul bunch,” Sirius said. Lily punched his arm across the centerpiece of the car. “Ow,” he whined. She swore he hadn’t matured a bit since school. No, she knew that wasn’t true, and it was cruel to imply so, but he could be so irritating…

“Your mum, as it happened, spent too much time among their kind as a girl, and look at this now! Abuse!”

“Sirius,” she said, and caught his eye when he turned to ramble on. She shook her head, glancing in the mirror at Harry, whose nerves had finally caught up to him, it seemed. Remembering the type of trouble he got into trouble for so rarely at school, she could see her son in Slytherin, yes, though she would prefer—what with whose children were already surely there—

Sirius turned back to the road. “Well,” he said, diplomatically as he could manage. “Of course not all of them were that bad.” He paused. “Not that I can think of any specific examples, but if you were, Harry—”

“ _Jamie,”_ Lily corrected.

“—then there’d be one, wouldn’t there? Though I think you’re more likely to be in Ravenclaw than Slytherin, myself.”

“Well, what’s not to say Jamie won’t be in Gryffindor, like his father?” Lily asked. Or his mother, or uncles.

“Let’s just drop it,” Sirius muttered.

“You’re the one who brought it up, Sirius.”

“And now I’m—”

“Would you turn up the radio, mum?” Harry piped up, leaning his head back against the window.

“Certainly, dear.”

The whistling intro to _Winds of Change_ droned out any further comments Sirius might be intent on adding in. She hated the song, really—her coworkers had picked up on how easily they could annoy her by simply whistling a few bars—but she’d been on leave from the hospital since the children got out for summer vacation. It was decisively less irritating than Sirius would be.

The peace driving through the country lasted about two songs, until Hollis got bored and started peppering her brother, then Sirius, with questions. She was still so young, Hollis—and as different as could be from here brother. Harry was plenty curious, of course, but much less likely to ask for an answer than seek it out in his books. Once he started asking, though, he could be as persistent as his sister in his train of questions, but he was more likely to form more solid conclusions than Hollis, who would jump from conclusion to conclusion with little regard to the process. He was like James in that sense—stubborn, in a way, because he spent more time gathering his thoughts. Though perhaps he was really more like Remus, who would insist on considering every side of things before drawing his tentative conclusions.

“How is Remus?” she asked Sirius, just low enough the children wouldn’t be too keen to listen. They had all decided it was best to wait until Harry and Hollis were older before explaining his lycanthropy; Harry had enough to deal with hiding already and Hollis was unfortunately likely to let something slip.

“The last one was a bad one. Its been almost a week. He’s getting too old for this.”

Lily frowned. “I wrote in the letter—”

“Lily,” Sirius said, not even wanting to hear her out. The letter was to Severus, and to Sirius, that was the equivalent of a letter to the devil. “I wouldn’t trust anything that bastard makes to be good for anything but poison.”

“That’s what it is, though. Poison. Just not for him. It makes…. It makes it weaker.”

“Well, how do you know he wouldn’t poison him instead? He’d certainly take some sort of sick pleasure from it.”

“Sirius…”

She could not deny that Severus would likely thrill at the chance to poison Remus. But she had written him in hopes that, along with the other agreements they had come to, he would agree to assist in their plans to try Remus on the Wolfsbane potion. The potion could be the ticket to changing Remus’ life—quicker recovery times aside, it could ease the fear that somehow, despite all their precautions, he might somehow come in contact with a human while transformed. But she had taken one look at writings and known that she would not be the one to brew the potion.

Oh, she was a competent brewer, she would not try to play down her skills—but this was, as Sirius said, a matter of poisons, and the only person she trusted to have clear enough focus to balance the delicate workings so as not to kill Remus in the attempt to help him was, ironically, Severus. He was also one of the few people she could imagine entertaining the thought of killing Remus—if not out of spite of Remus directly, out of spite of Sirius—but she knew Severus. Or, she had known Severus. If he was anything like the boy she had known—had thought she had known—his _pride_ would be too great to intentionally botch a potion. And if he did not get it right the first time, he would have it perfected the second. If she could still expect him to be the same.

If not, Liliane Jeannot would be in the market for a new brewer. Less ideal, but workable.

She massaged her forehead. Hollis had taken to staring out the window, waving her hand along in time to God knows what, and Harry seemed to have drifted off to sleep. He would be tired. She studied his face, and settled into her seat with another sigh. She had done all she could to prepare him. And maybe it was cruel to send an eleven-year-old boy to the wolves, but he was not meant for keeping locked in a cage. No one was.

 

 

24

 

“Again, Harry.”

“It’s been two hours al—”

“Do you want to go or not?”

Harry licked his lips, dry and cracked and stinging with the sweat rolling down his forehead, and forced himself to stand up straight and raise the wand. Holly, 11”, phoenix feather core. Curious, Ollivander had said. Suiting, Lily had said. Harry had just been happy to finally have a tool to channel his magic. No more little tricks to impress his sister. Real, proper magic.

Now, however, he glared at the hunk of wood resting heavily in his hand. Lily said he needed practice, perseverance, and above all, intent, but if what he was doing wasn’t practicing with perseverant intent, he didn’t know what was.

It was well after bedtime, two weeks after he had gotten the letter. They had left Grimmauld Place, unfortunately, hurrying off to take up residence at Godric’s Hollow. Lily had taken him to get his school things before they left London, and as soon as they had settled in had started drilling him on all sorts of magic, running through lists of charms that he knew weren’t in his books.

(Yes, he had looked, and no, he wasn’t looking in the wrong book, because he had checked all of them. She simply wasn’t running through beginner spells, and that wasn’t fair, because how was he supposed to figure out what to do if he couldn’t read about it? Rely on dumb luck?)

“Try again, Harry,” Lily said for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“ _Expelliarmus,”_ Harry muttered darkly, flicking his wand.

“Harry!”

He sighed, focused, and really tried. “ _Expelliarmus!”_

The wand in her hand did manage to slip out of her grip, but only to clatter to the floor just in front of her. Lily—well, she stared at it for a moment, face blank, and when she looked up and smiled it was simply the action of pulling back the corners of her mouth.

“Better,” she said, reaching down to pick it up. Harry let his wand hand fall to his side. She seemed to be moving slower, so maybe she wasn’t going to make him go again. Maybe. Or maybe she’d just make him start listing incantations again, for the spells even she had to admit an eleven-year-old who had never used a wand before wasn’t going to get.

“Harry.”

“What?”

She looked down at him, and sighed, mopping the sweat off her brow. A wave of her wand and the shield charms she set up around her potions peeled away, like a layer of unnoticed glass suddenly shattering. “Go get ready for bed,” she said. “Then come back down.”

He hurried out the door before she could change her mind, then drug his feet up the stairs to the bedroom on the top floor. Pudge, the white cat that had been running half wild around their home in France for years, was sitting at the top of the stairs, flicking its beastly tail. Harry stuck his tongue out and vaulted over it, the only way to keep his ankles safe, then froze and listened down the stairs for any grumbling from Holly. Silence. Lily had some way of getting her to fall asleep early, he swore. He was more tired these days than he’d ever been in his life, but still he could barely sleep in that house. Holly, she slept like a rock.

He put on his pajamas as slowly as he could, and washed his face and brushed his teeth more thoroughly than ever before, but still that only wasted fifteen minutes, and he didn’t think he could dawdle any more without irritating Lily.

So he trudged back downstairs and lingered in the doorway of her potions lab, and if she didn’t notice him until she happened to turn around that was her fault, not his. “All ready?” she asked, gentle as she hadn’t been before.

He nodded and stepped into the lab, bare feet on flagstones. She held out a little vial with a clear potion in it. _To ease your mind,_ she had said the first time. It did not taste like much. If anything, it had a metallic tang the way the water at Grimmauld Place had, before they redid the kitchen. But he had to force himself not to gag at the taste of it, a reminder of what was to come. When he looked back up, Lily had taken her potions, too, and she was different. Dark hair and a dark face, sharper features and grey eyes that gave him no comfort.

“ _Jamie_?” she said, that same gentle question. He swallowed.

“ _Yes, Maman_.”

She gestured at one of the stools, and sat herself at the other. _“You remember the apartment in Troyes?”_ she asked.

He nodded. Already the potion was starting to affect him, and the jerking of his head seemed to dislodge memories in his mind, sending his image of the place tumbling into each other, Holly crying—the baby sitter, a muggle, watching the telly and smoking out the window, Lily coming home exhausted and leaving the blue cape in a heap by the door.

 _“Do you remember when your Uncle Sirius first visited?”_ Lily asked. Harry blinked, and the image of his uncle seemed to flash before him—as he had seen him a month ago, as he had seen him long ago, in France. He wasn’t sure that Sirius ever went to the apartment in Troyes with them, and if so, it was too far back for him to remember, but that was the intent, wasn’t it? Filling in gaps.

_“Remember how when he first came to visit, I thought he was your father, all grown up? Remember how he seemed so surprised to have found us, like he hadn’t expected it to be true?”_

She was casting some sort of spell now, the one she had before, the one that made him dizzy and weak and filled his mind with a white glow and brought up bile in his throat. He could see her there, in the space in his memories, but it was like a puppet show, caricatures and jerky motions, things that he couldn’t possibly remember because Liliane Jeannot didn’t exist—

_“Remember how Lily Potter and I had met in the Hospital the week before? Remember how I told you we weren’t to tell anyone we’d met again, for fear of privacy violations, and how you didn’t understand what that meant? Remember how she was the one to introduce us to Sirius?”_

He remembered, like a terrible wedge was being shoved in his mind and prying it open, letting go just to have it snap in place around the addition. He remembered, and it made him see her face blur double.

_“Remember how you first met Harry Potter, Jamie? How shy you were? Remember how when I tried to explain that Sirius was your uncle but not Hollis’ you got angry and threw a fit and turned Hollis’ hair blue, and cried and cried until I turned her back?”_

He did remember that, but it wasn’t because—Sirius wasn’t his—

_“Remember, Jamie? After all those years alone we suddenly had family? Remember?”_

It wasn’t—he wasn’t—

_“Jamie?”_

Realities colliding into each other, the potion vial slipping from his fingers down onto the floor, Holly laughing, screaming—

“ _Jamie?”_

_  
_

27

 

Harry let his mind drift, closing his eyes and idly translating the songs from French to English and what Tolkien Elvish he could figure out. He found it odd his uncle would ask about houses, especially when—well. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be in Gryffindor, the way his mum and Sirius had turned out.

Remus was much more diplomatic about things, but he’d always said he had made a terrible Gryffindor, at least for the whole bravery side of things. Harry wasn’t feeling particularly brave, just then. He felt like a coward, hiding behind a French name and a smoothening cream and memories that didn’t belong.

He woke with a jolt when the door opened out from under him. His sister stood in front of him, hands crossed over her chest. Her face were still puffy from the night before, when she’d snuck into his room crying that she didn’t want him to leave, but beyond that it hardly showed.

“Come on _, Jamie,”_ she said. She smiled—in acknowledgement of his contempt for the name? Harry doubted it, he was probably just writing her off as a brat. But then, in French, she added, “ _Don’t you want to go to Hogwarts?”_

So yes, she was just being contrite. Harry rolled his eyes and unbuckled his seatbelt, trying not to rattle Pudge’s basket too much as he climbed out of the car, but he could hear the cat letting out another low growl.

 _“You want to be Jamie Jeannot for the rest of your life?”_ he demanded. He saw her smile falter—somewhere along the lines she had finally realized it wasn’t just a game mum was having them play. Well, good. She couldn’t be such a child about it forever.

He circled around to the back of the car, where Sirius had already unloaded his trunk onto a trolley, but didn’t get to take it from him as suddenly Lily’s hand was clasped firmly on his shoulder. “ _Maman!”_ he complained, the way it had become so easy for him to. _“Let go! I’m not four!”_

“You’re certainly acting like it,” she said harshly, her voice gruff and lightly accented, but after a few moments she lightened her grip. The hand, however, stayed, but they had found their way into the station and Harry was too busy looking around to pay it much mind.

“Mum, I need the loo,” whined Holly, clearly less impressed.

“Later, Hollis.”

He had taken the train here before—the Muggle train, that was, when they went to Surrey to visit Lily’s relatives. And he was fairly certain that his ticket had said “Kings Cross” on it, but Lily had insisted. So it was fascinating, really, all the muggles hurrying like they were on some sort of mission. But Lily pulled him off away from ticketing and the platforms, to a small door that everyone else seemed to be ignoring, with no markings save a small black plaque on the fogged glass window reading “NO INQUIRIES.”

And when he came out the other side, they were in a train station, yes, but it was another train station entirely. “Kings Cross,” Lily said quietly, pulling him away from the door to let Sirius and Hollis through behind them.

Even without his glasses, he marveled at how many people there were. Most seemed to be filtering in and out by the entrance to the Underground, but even past that it was like New York all over again, or maybe Tokyo. Swarms of people hurrying this way and that, most of them entirely inclined to ignore mother gripping her son’s shoulder tightly.

“Packed with muggles, as always!” a woman was calling out. Harry looked around, but the group found him before he found them: a swarm of read-heads that swerved around them. “Come on, boys—Percy, help your brother—”

Lily clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth when they went by. “Honestly,” she said, with that same dry accent as before. “So much for the Statutes of Secrecy.”

“Oh, come on,” said Sirius. “The Weasleys are a good lot—”

“Arthur works in Muggle Affairs, doesn’t he? They should know better than anyone that ‘muggle’ is hardly a term to be shouting about.”

“Who are the Weasleys, mum?” Holly’s voice piped up. She had quieted down, now that they were in such a large crowd, and appeared by Harry’s elbow, walking as close to him as she could without actually touching.

“The family that just went by. Part of the old crowd, lovely people, if a bit… quaint.”

“All Gryffindors, as far as I know,” said Sirius. “I’d introduce you Harry, but—”

“ _Jamie!”_ Lily said sharply, and That Was the End of That.

They found their way to platforms nine and ten, and Lily, her hand still firmly on her son’s shoulder, walked him straight towards a brick wall without so much as a warning. He spluttered when he found himself on the other side, Holly having paused in the muggle side of the station but showing up a moment later with Sirius and the trunk. “Won’t someone notice?” she was asking, but Sirius’ answer was lost in the crowd.

The platform was, if possible, even more densely packed with people. Where the other side had been filled with muggles, here was the rainbow of colors that made up a crowd of magical folk of all shapes and sizes. Some in their robes, some in oddly mismatched muggle clothing, and a few, more put-out looking than the rest, dressed relatively normally, probably sharing Lily’s outlook on the Statutes of Secrecy.

Unlike the rest of the parents, who seemed to be milling about and socializing more than anything, Lily pulled Harry off to the side so they could hurry down to the far end of the platform, before she cut across directly to the train. If anyone noticed Sirius, the only one of their little family wearing a recognized face, they called out, but Harry did not any of his uncle’s laughing replies. Holly was back at Harry’s elbow, clinging now, which proved difficult with Lily’s hand still glued to his other shoulder. It was a relief to climb on the train, where the doorway only opened wide enough to let one person through at a time and Lily was finally forced to let go of him, stepping on first.

They found a compartment quickly enough, with most people still on the platform or entering the train from closer to the barrier. Harry set down Pudge’s lowly rumbling basket on the bench as Sirius hoisted his trunk up onto the overhead racks. Lily was lurking in the window, clasping at her elbows like she might need to draw her wand in a hurry.

“Look,” Sirius said, “There’s Augusta Longbottom and Frank and Alice’s son—they always were the nice—”

“Mum, the loo—”

“”ve you seen Draco ‘round?” someone asked from the doorway. Lily whirled around much quicker than Harry, who took the boy in—about his height, but at least twice his weight, if his blurred vision was anything to go by. “Draco Malfoy?”

“No,” Lily said coldly.

Harry winced. He knew that voice—and apparently the boy in the doorway was quick on the uptake, because he turned and fled. “ _Maman,”_ Harry said. “ _How am I going to meet anyone if you do that?”_

 _“That’s not the sort,”_ Lily said, as though that made any sense.

“And the Diggorys,” Sirius said. Harry peered around him out the window. “Oh, and the Malfoys are coming this way, nasty bastards—”

Lily pulled him away, which was just as well, for the figures outside were nothing but light and dark smudges. “James,” she said. “You have my letter to the Professor?”

“Yes, mum,” he said. “You made sure it was in my trunk. Three times.”

“And you will write, of course, once a week, if not more.”

“It makes it sound like he’s going off on some mission, not to school, when you talk like that,” Sirius complained. “Honestly, Lils, that’s just—”

“Mum, the _loo,”_ Holly whined.

Lily sighed and straightened back up. “Come on then, Hollis,” she said. “We’ll have to hurry. Sirius, stay with Jamie…?”

“Of course,” said Sirius, and Lily swept out of the compartment, Holly in tow.

Harry let out the breath he had at some point started holding. A moment later he felt Sirius’ hand in his hair. “Siri,” he groaned. “Not today…”

Well, his uncle didn’t mess up his hair too much, no more than could be fixed quickly. “You okay there, little man?” he asked while Harry leaned into the window, checking his reflection.

Harry groaned. “Siri, really? You too? I’m not five…”

“Nope,” said Sirius. He sat down on one side of the window, motioning for Harry to sit on the other side, and for a moment they sat there in silence staring at each other. It was only when Sirius started talking again and moved to wipe at his eyes Harry realized his godfather must be tearing up. “You know, your dad would be do proud of you…” he started.

“I haven’t _done_ anything yet.”

“You wouldn’t have to, kid,” Sirius replied. “I met him on this train, you know.”

“Siri,” Harry warned. If Lily were here she’d be punching his uncle’s shoulder for not sticking to talking only about her approved story.

“The years we spent at Hogwarts—I’d give anything to go back.”

“I know,” Harry said awkwardly. Sirius looked at him and sighed, running his hand through his own hair this time, luckily. Privately, Harry didn’t think Sirius had ever really left Hogwarts, in his heart of hearts. Sirius was still as much a kid as he and Holly were. So he let Sirius gesture at the seats broadly without actually managing to say anything.

“You know, Remus would’ve loved to be here,” he finally said.

“I know.”

“But he couldn’t, he really couldn’t, even though he wanted to—”

“Because he was sick,” Harry finished. “Its okay, Siri. Really. Rem and I said goodbye already and everything.”

“But he really—”

The door slid open, and Sirius looked over, mouth hanging open, paused. It wasn’t until he jumped up out of his seat that Harry looked too, the mood between them broken.

“Oh, it’s taken, mother,” a boy with shockingly blond hair said. Harry squinted, trying to see better, but the boy was already turned away, facing a tall, slender woman in a charcoal dress. “Can we just—”

When an even taller figure stepped into view, it was as though the temperature in the compartment had dropped and all the air had been sucked out. Harry could see Sirius’s hand inching towards his inner robes, where he knew his uncle kept his wand, and his stomach dropped out from under him. What if this was—all his mother’s warnings came back—dangerous people—

“Well, well,” the man said, voice deceptively soft. His hair was just as bright as the boy’s, and he was dressed in long black robes. “If it isn’t Auror Black himself.”

“Malfoy.”

“I hadn’t heard you had a child, cousin,” said the woman. “I would have expected you to have the decency to inform _family,_ if not the rest of the world.”

Sirius’ hand took the place that Lily’s usually sat, holding tightly onto his godson’s shoulder. “You haven’t heard because it’s none of your business, _Narcissa,_ ” he said curtly. “Not that I have. Get out.”

“Basic courtesy would have you introduce your… acquaintance, then, Black.”

Magic seemed to crackle between the two man, but then, with a sudden twist, Sirius seemed to lighten considerably. “Oh course,” he said. “This is my nephew. He’s starting at Hogwarts this year, if you must know. _Basic courtesy_ would have me spare him from such unpleasant company.”

The blond man’s eyes seemed to bore into Harry, and he blinked, remembering the look as similar to the one his muggle teacher had given when he’d hidden all the snakes in Claud’s desk. His soft voice seemed to practically echo with skepticism. “I had not heard that Regulus had left any… family.”

“He was hardly going to mention them, not to your sort,” Sirius snapped. “Assuming he even knew. Now get out.”

His command was ignored as the man steered his son back into the doorway from where he had drifted off towards his mother. “Any blood of Regulus’, of course, is family of ours as well,” the man said. “Draco, introduce yourself to your… cousin.”

Harry blinked, and shrugged off his uncle’s shoulder, raising his hand. He took on that same accent Lily had, though lighter, much lighter, as he raised his hand. “Jamie Jeannot,” he offered.

The boy took his hand like he’d rather not be touching Harry—Jamie—at all. They were close enough that he could see the careful disinterest on the boy’s face, hiding what—curiosity?—as he returned the gesture. “Draco Malfoy.” He pulled his hand away and looked back up. “Mother, Vince and Greg—”

“Can find you here, of course,” his father said smoothly. He waved his wand at the luggage rack. A trunk appeared next to Harry’s— _Jamie’s!_ “Funny I’ve spent enough time in France to be acquainted with society, but the name ‘Jeannot’ doesn’t ring any bells…”

“I could assist you,” Sirius said. “’Liane works in the hospital there. I’d be more than happy to send you along.”

There was another drawn out silence, so still Jamie could feel the glares being exchanged. He met Draco’s eyes, and he must have looked confused, for the other boy just gave a little shrug. The frozen atmosphere was broken only by the sudden blast of the train horn.

“Uncle,” H—Jamie said urgently, turning around. “Won’t you go find _maman_ and Holly? I want to say goodbye.”

“Of course,” said Sirius. He didn’t move.

“Well, then,” said Malfoy senior, his pose equally unbroken. “I’m sure we can leave Draco with young _Jamie_ here, Narcissa. The young man certainly has plenty to learn about how the world works here in Britain. I’m sure Draco would not mind to serve as a model of _decent_ behavior. Shall we?”

Their son turned away from him then, but a quick gesture from his mother silenced whatever he was going to say. She passed over a basket not unlike the one Pudge was held in (though noticeably more quiet), and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.

“Mother,” the boy said, his ears turning bright pink against his light hair.

“Hush,” she said, and with a firm hand, guided him back into one of the seats. He sat on it, looking up at his father, who with another blast of the train horn finally turned and swept out of the compartment, door sliding shut behind him.

Sirius rounded on Jamie. “You hex him the first chance you get, you hear?”

“I’m sitting right here, you know,” Draco sat.

“Siri,” said Jamie. “ _Maman?”_

Sirius sighed, squeezed him into a tight hug that seemed to last too long, and gave Draco a final glare before hurrying out.

“Sorry about him,” Jamie said, filling the awkward gap between them. “He can be a bit headstrong.”

Draco shrugged, but was curious. “Are you _really_ my cousin?” he asked.

“As far as I know.”

“Huh.” The boy paused. “We don’t look related.”

H—Jamie sighed. He’d gotten plenty of that before, since he got his looks from Lily, not—

He blinked as he felt a fresh stab of pain in his forehead. It was so confusing, having all these conflicting memories floating around. He _knew_ he looked like his dad, not Lily, but then his mind was trying to convince him he got his looks from his mother, who was Liliane Jeannot, not his father, who was Regulus Black, and—

Three things happened at once to make him jump. First the horn blasted again. Second, someone slid the compartment door open again. And third, someone knocked on the windows. He tried to turn both ways at once, earning a confused look from Draco, who got up to greet the boy in the door.

“ _Jamie,”_ Holly whined from outside the window. “ _They’re not letting us back on, saying students only.”_

He scooted towards his sister, seeing she was perched on Sirius’ shoulders and even then barely reaching high enough to see through.

“ _Jamie,”_ Lily—Liliane—his mother said. _“Keep your wand on you at all times. If you see anything, anything at all that—”_

 _“Got to the Professor, I know, I know,”_ he said. He looked at Holly. She would never admit it, but he could tell there were tears forming in her eyes. _“You’re going to be alright, you know?”_ he said. _“You’ll be back to school next week.”_

 _“I know,”_ she said, deceptively bright. _“And I get the whole room to myself.”_

He sighed, _again,_ and reached out. He wanted to give her a hug, but the window was too narrow, so he settled for grabbing her hands and leaning in closer, so their mother wouldn’t hear. _“If she gets too weird, call Remus,”_ he said. _“They’ll take you back to London, if she’s too hard to handle.”_

 _“I can deal with it,”_ Holly whispered back. _“I’m nine, Harry, not five.”_

 _“Jamie,”_ he corrected gently.

The horn blasted. Someone was shouting on the platform. Sirius stepped back, taking Holly with him, leaving the boy halfway leaning out the window.

“ _Jamie,”_ his mother said, looking up at him. _“Write us!”_

 _“I will,”_ he said, still looking at his sister. “ _Goodbye.”_

The horn blasted again, and he pulled back in. At some point Draco had come up beside him. “That’s your family, then?” the blonde boy asked.

“Yes,” said Jamie. Draco nodded, and waved at Holly with him. Suddenly the train lurched, and they fell back into their seats.

Jamie felt something press against his hand, and quickly tucked it into his pocket. His sister had slipped it to him—the little silver horse necklace she always wore. He didn’t know what had prompted her to give him that, but he liked the way it felt, tucked away in his pocket. A little bit of home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear. Well, here's this chapter, finally. Somehow it took me about five times as long as all the others. You would think, at least after I finished my finals and quarter, I would be able to write at a faster pace. Nope.
> 
> This chapter was, however, a very difficult chapter to write. When I first started working on this story--the very beginnings, mind you, about two years ago--this was where the story began. The massive over-hall when I did the majority of the writing you see now included about 95% of the plot and building you've seen so far. So when I got back to this point, it was an interesting exercise in combining together a much less developed story with this one.
> 
> It was also hard to write just in terms of content, but thats another story entirely. I will summarize with how, at about the 80% mark, I had the urge to completely delete it and post about two sentences saying: Actually, they went back to France and abandoned the magical world entirely, living happily ever after.
> 
> But I didn't.
> 
> (Also, it was hard to write because I kept getting distracted by researching french music in the early 90s and reading a bunch of useless information about train stations in the UK that I then ignored. But we're ignoring that.)
> 
> So! Thank you for your patience, and your kind words. I'm glad you guys are enjoying this as much as I am (when I'm not moping about writing), and with any luck the next chapter will be faster. No promises, though--I'm starting a new quarter at school, and am completely booked from 8:30 - 5:20 during the week, and an incredibly lazy college student desperately avoiding internship hunting on the weekends. So hopefully I can work in regular writing time to my schedule, and with any luck can get the next chapter up in the next two-three weeks!


	10. What is Written on the Heart Pt II

30.

At the edge of the lake, the black-cloaked children flooded  out of the boats, swirling around the bottom of the stairs around the grounds keeper, who was like a lumbering boulder between them. As they started up the stairs, the boats drifted out of the tucked away harbor, back through the curtain of ivy and into the night. The children climbed.

At the head of the group, trailing just behind a bright-headed boy, was another: short and unnoticeable, dark and easy to lose in the blackening night. Easy to lose in the crowd. He hardly noticed the three flights of switchback stairs up the cliff face, and he was trapped up against the wall, unable to glance out over the lake when it came back into view.. The leaders of the group were eager, or they would not have set the pace they did; luckily for the less athletic children the stairs tricked their feet with feather-light charms, and they made the climb at a good pace.

At the top of the stairs, a boy was re-united with his toad. Ghosts floated through the walls and chatted amiably with the more outgoing children. Nerves wore thin until they began to bicker. A severe witch stepped in and cut them short with a few short words, and led them into the hall.

Were the boy wearing his glasses, he might have found comfort in the enchantments filling the rafters with night sky and stars. The candles hovering lazily throughout the hall might have caught his attention. He might have put faces to the crowd craning to watch them come in, or recognized the witch who lead them, or the man at the center of the table, or the man at the far end.

He did not. He was blind with sudden fear.

All along the four great tables, filled with curious students from end to end, a whispering was growing. From his bubble of self-absorption, the boy could hear their words hissing through. _Where is he? No one’s seen him. Maybe that one— Don’t be racist. None of them have the scar… It is this year, right?_

At the front, oblivious to all, a tattered hat sat atop a short stool. The witch guided the children to fill out the space left between the stage of the head table and the front of the four great tables, where the front seats sat empty. The witch said something. The boy, scarcely able to see, managed to peer around someone else’s shoulder just as the hat’s body separated from the brim, and from this mouth like gap, a ragged voice began to sing.

_Oh you may not think I'm pretty,_

_But don't judge on what you see,_

_I'll eat myself if you can find_

_A smarter hat than me._  
  


_You can keep your bowlers black,_

_Your top hats sleek and tall,_

_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_

_And I can cap them all._  
  


_There's nothing hidden in your head_

_The Sorting Hat can't see,_

_So try me on and I will tell you_

_Where you ought to be…_  
  


The boy did not hear the rest.

_There’s nothing hidden in your head the Sorting Hat can’t see._

_There’s nothing hidden in your head…_

He tried to focus as the witch began to call out names. One by one the children went forward, The boy’s panic rose as the hat called out houses—what was stopping it from calling out his true name? To cast him out of hiding?

The group began to grow smaller, as one after another the children were sorted; this one heading off to the right, that one to the left.

“Jeannot, James!”

Someone nudged him. He blinked and must have stepped forward, as moments later he was sitting down on the stool.

_I’m doomed._

As the hat was lowered toward his head, the boy took a deep breath.

If the hat had had a set of lungs, it would have too.

 

 

28. 

Severus Snape stood alone in the Slytherin common room, feeling all at once incredibly tired.

It was September the first, and holidays, as always, had been too short. He was prone to holding the word _summer_ in his mouth with the bitterness carried forward from his student years, but standing at the precipice of autumn, the two months free from the aggravations of squealing and shrieking students were the seventeen percent of his life moderately tolerable being wrenched out from underneath his feet.

He did not like children. He liked teaching even less. It was an unfortunate situation for all involved.

He had entertained the thought about moving on from Hogwarts—several times—but where else would he be employed, ex-Death Eater on top of all else? His list of previous employers included a dead Dark Lord and an equally manipulative Hogwarts Headmaster, neither of whom would speak for him with any accolades. The dead Dark Lord—well, presumed dead, not to mention an instigator of genocide and civil war—aside, Albus Dumbledore was unlikely to make any move that would take Severus away from his control. And the employers who might consider him? Friends of the Malfoys, perhaps, in the capacity that they had friends. People who would put him fully in the realm of the Dark Lord’s allies—a place he would not find comfortable if Dumbledore’s theories of the Dark Lord’s eventual resurgence came to pass.

As the bells rang somewhere higher in the castle Severus gave the waiting house elves an incoherent grunt and swept out of the room. He had no interest in the leather furniture Lucius Malfoy had suggested to the board in the wake of his son’s arrival or the polished marble fireplaces two months cold. He probably knew the dungeons better than anyone alive—too many years of keeping track of too many students—but the upgrades were only gilding on his prison bars. The wretched children would know no better.

Minerva met him on the landing, looking, as ever, as though she were taking a brief pause from juggling several wild geese. He supposed managing all the areas of Hogwarts the Headmaster did not had that effect on people.  “Oh, Severus,” she said, her eyebrows shifting in something like pity. For him—or for the students, perhaps, at the sight of his scowl. Both, most likely; she always had pity to spare, ever since she had concluded it was worth her while to tolerate his company (a conclusion Severus was unsure how she had reached, only the nagging suspicion the Headmaster had been involved. He shuddered to think how that conversation had gone—a miserable smiting of his person, certainly). “The children will be arriving soon, won’t they.”

“Unfortunately,” he agreed. Her pitying look turned reproachful, but that was better. Easier to digest.

“Do try to contain your enthusiasm.” She paused, but Severus knew by now not to respond to that, so she went on. “Albus is looking for you.”

“Is he?”

“Please, Severus; I don’t have the patience to deal with your tone. Students fresh out of summer will be handful enough; you on top of that?” She pulled something out of her robe and held it out towards him—an envelope. “Take that to him, will you?”

“I’ll be sure to drop it on his plate,” said Severus, as mildly as he could muster.

She frowned deeper, retracting her hand. “I think not. It is post back from the registry, after all.”

“The registry?”

“Harry Potter is not on the train. This confirms whether or not he even received his letter.”

Severus sighed and shook away one of the billowing sleeves from his hands, reaching towards her. “Perhaps this will prove to him what I have said all along.”

“Perhaps,” she said. Even Minerva, who believed the best of the old fool, had grown wary of his attempts to correspond with Lily—but she would not speak ill of him. Severus was always to remember that. As harmless as their tenuous camaraderie might seem, she was the most powerful woman he had ever met, and a fiercely potent witch besides.

“And perhaps the giant squid will decide it is hungry,” he continued, shoving the envelope away into the folds of his cloak. “And there will be no first years to deal with.”

“Severus—”

“There ya’ are, Minerva!” came the booming voice of Hagrid. It made Severus’s head rattle, and he took the chance to flee up the stairs, ignoring the blithering idiot's asinine comments on his swift departure carrying on after him.

Eventually, Severus came to another landing, this one on the Third Floor.  He looked across to the left-hand corridor, where lay a season of migraines waiting to happen. That the headmaster thought it wise to choose such an obvious location to hide the Philosopher’s Stone—that he thought it wise to hide the stone at the school at all was beyond Severus. The Philosopher’s Stone, key to alchemical immortality, hunted by wealthy fools and dark wizards alike, stored in the middle of a school?

Severus had no interest in the stone. If he ever came to desire immortality, he would obtain it on his own terms.

He did, however, have interest in the sort of people who would pursue it: people on whom it would be perfectly legal to refresh his repertoire of curses.

“Severus, my boy.” The Headmaster’s voice seemed to come from all around, but it was up a landing. Severus scowled as the stairway locked in place between them and the old man came drifting down. He wasn’t the anyone’s _boy;_ he’d said as such time and time again. “You are looking as spirited as ever.”

Severus crossed his arms in order to keep himself from any rude gestures—they were as useful with Dumbledore as a trowel was against a mountain. “Professor McGonagall said you were looking for me.”

“Did she?” The wizard had drawn level with Severus, close enough he could see the way his eyes crinkled cheerfully behind his golden glasses. The half-moon frames matched the man’s robes: dark blue, with shimmering specks of sequined silver playing across it: a scattering of stars. For the headmaster, it was an astoundingly restrained ensemble. Even his hat was no more than a boxy bit of cloth—no bright colors or tassels or plumage. It was horribly suspicious.

“Are you not?” he asked back, in lieu of his fashion commentary. One could spend years trying to make sense of the old wizard’s wardrobe; such ponderings, like rude gestures, were useless.

“I am looking for a letter back from the registry, and once I receive it, I shall be looking for you,” the man said. He began to walk towards the stairs Severus had just fled up, expecting, in his irritating way, that Severus would simply follow him. Of course Severus did. But not without taking offense.

“But if you have not received the letter, then you are not looking for me,” Severus said. “And if you are not looking for me, then good day, Headmaster.”

“Erudite logic, as ever, Severus. But if I am not mistaken, that is the letter in your robes, no?”

The letter, of course, was tucked away out of sight, so either the headmaster was bluffing, or had known all along. It was the latter, of course. Still, Severus considered carrying on the game for a total of three seconds—and, catching himself, pulled out the letter. The Headmaster inspected it as though checking for poison (a missed chance, Severus noted scornfully) before opening it.

His stroll came to a pause at the head of the stairs. “Ah,” he said simply.

“Well,” said Severus. “Weren’t you looking for me?”

The man offered the sheet—Ministry stationary, contents written by an autonotation quill’s sharp hand—and Severus scanned it. The contents were brief.

 

_To Professor Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore, all Honours extended,_

_Regarding the matter of one POTTER, HARRY JAMES:_

_Hogwarts Enrollment Removal paperwork was filed on 12 JULY by one POTTER, LILY EVANS, MOTHER to the concerned party. Of given options, chosen was EMPLOYING PERSONAL TUTORS and TRAVEL ABROAD. Additional comments as follows:_

Harry will be seeking a more international education than a school such as Hogwarts can provide. Do not attempt to contact with information regarding OWLs, NEWTs, apprenticeship opportunities, etc.

_If there is any further information the Secretaries of the Registry can provide you, please contact S.R. Phineas Phyle, Sr. directly._

_Signed,_

_SECRETARIES OF THE REGISTRY_

 

“So she’s left the country,” Severus said. He folded the stationary and passed it back to the Headmaster, who tucked it into the envelope. They continued down the stairs.

“Perhaps,” the old wizard said. Gone was his playful façade; now he looked thoughtful. “But it seems unlikely. Lily Potter may be protective of her son, but she is well aware the day will come when he is needed again. She will not remove him completely from the UK, I think.”

“You put a lot of faith in her returning to the fight,”

“You do not think she will?”

“What does she have to come back for?” Severus pointed out, coolly. “Everyone she cared about is either dead after the war or a word away from running away with her and her… progeny.”

Dumbledore turned his head to give the younger wizard a long look. “And which of those do you fall under, I wonder.”

“Neither,” Severus said shortly. “I have no delusions as to where I stand for Lily Potter.”

They had reached the landing of the main stair, and came to a pause outside of the doors. The Headmaster moved to tuck away the letter, and brought out instead what looked to be a twig. “Tell me, Severus,” he said, holding it out.  “Do you recognize this?”

“ _Salix alba_. White willow.” He could list forty—no, forty-two potions that employed sections of the tree: twenty-three medicinal, fifteen poisons, and five of other uses. “Mundane.”

The headmaster took it back. “Muggles make medicine from it, same as us,” he said. “Yet the medicine is poison to their stomach linings. Curious, isn’t it?”

Severus supposed there was some sort of poetic explanation to the wizard’s tangent, but Dumbledore was already turning into the Great Hall, calling out to Professor Flitwick. Severus stared at his fingers, turning over the headmaster’s words, but he found nothing there, nothing that could not be pulled from any number of plants or metaphors.

He turned to follow Albus into the Hall, to do away with some of Flitwick’s more ridiculous decorations and glare at the headmaster for that stunning waste of time, when another thought came to mind. A memory, years old.

_“Willow, ten and a quarter inches,” the girl said proudly, holding it out more like a glass figurine than a tool. “Mr. Ollivander said it will be good for charms. What about yours, Sev?”_

 

 

 29.

“So, Sirius Black?”

Jamie blinked. The third boy had left again, so Draco Malfoy could only be talking to him. It was a wonder that this boy was related to the Blacks—he and Sirius looked like polar opposites—but he supposed he looked more different still. “Yes?” he said when the boy did not go on. “What about him?”

“He’s really your uncle?”

Jamie tilted his head to the side. “Well, I’ve never met my father, and I never will—hopefully,” he said. It was a welcome relief, for his answer to be no different between his truth as Harry and his truth as Jamie: less confusing and less headachy. Even the last bit: of course he would like to have met his father, but if his eleven-year-old mind were wise about anything, it was that necromancy was not to be messed with. “And I’m not sure about how pureblood families label these sort of family ties if someone is a bastard. But for all intents and purposes? Yes.”

“Ravenclaw,” the boy sniffed. His hair, which even through the blur of Jamie’s vision was clearly about half product to slick it back (not that Jamie could make any judgment there), caught the light as he turned to watch out the window as buildings went by in a geographically impossible manner. Without glasses, to Jamie the light seemed to be shrouding him in a blurry halo.

“Pardon?”

Draco looked at him suspiciously. “You do _know_ about Hogwarts, don’t you?”

If it was a matter of the houses that Draco were referring to—yes. If it were something covered in the first half of _Hogwarts, a History_ —yes. If it were something mentioned in one of his uncles’ stories—yes. So while he was not sure—“Yes?”

The boy still looked skeptical. “Well, I'm saying you’re going to be put into Ravenclaw.”

Ravenclaw. Well, it was an inoffensive option. His mother (or maybe it was an uncle?) had said he would do well in Ravenclaw.  It wasn’t Gryffindor, but it also wasn’t Slytherin or Hufflepuff.

_Astounding logic_ , he thought, but brushed past. “What house are you for, then?”

“Slytherin, of course,” Draco said. He smiled what was most likely a genuine smile for the first time since they’d met. “All of my family have always been Slytherin. On both sides.”

“Siri is your uncle too, right?” Jamie asked. “He was in Gryffindor.”

“Semantics,” Draco said. He had probably been trained to say that in the place of _whatever._ He seemed like a _whatever_ sort of person. “Dear Uncle Sirius is no more a Black than, oh, Harry Potter.”

Jamie’s breath caught—it must have looked like the flinch his mother had been trying to train into him, because Draco’s face turned back towards him. “He’s the head of the Black family, though.” Sirius, not Harry. Adopting Harry directly into the Black family had been considered and dropped several years ago. Something about pureblood politics Jamie did not understand.

“Semantics,” Draco repeated, batting a hand. “Ravenclaw is not so bad, I suppose. It could be _Hufflepuff_. Even my father couldn’t help a Hufflepuff.”

Jamie considered this dully. It was clear that despite his father’s insistence Draco did not consider him part of the family, if he were so quickly written outside of Slytherin. Not that he minded either way. “If you’re for Slytherin, wouldn’t Gryffindor be worse?”

“My father says Gryffindors have their uses,” Draco said with a shrug. “Headstrong, but if they can be put on the right path, their bullheadedness can clear a path for _real_ work to be done.”

It was a fair assessment, at least for Lily and Sirius, if not Remus. “Everyone I know was a Gryffindor.”

“Your father wasn’t.”

“I never knew him.”

“And your mother?”

Jamie blinked. “ _Maman?_ She did not go to Hogwarts. We’re from France.”

“Beauxbatons, then?” Draco sounded eager, leaning forward in his seat.

“No,” Jamie said. He cast his mind through what he knew about Liliane Jeannot. “An apprenticeship,” it filled in.

“Well, my father says Beauxbatons is _girlish._ They focus mainly on _charms,_ of all things. Father wanted me to go to Durmstrang, of course.”

“Of course,” Jamie echoed, though he wasn’t sure what was obvious about it. He barely knew anything about Durmstrang, only that it was where the Dark Lord Grindelwald had attended, until he had been thrown out. “Why aren’t you?”

“Oh, you know,” Draco said, turning his head to look into the hall of the train. He had his mannerisms, it was clear: attempting to literally wave off subjects appeared to be one of them.

“Semantics?” Jamie asked.

Luckily for him, though Draco’s head turned sharply at his cheek, the door to the compartment slid open, revealing two figures, one pointing down at him. “You!’ the boy said. “Why’s _he_ in here, Draco?”

Jamie squinted, but from the voice he could assume it was the same boy who had stopped by when his mother had been on the train. “I’m sorry if _Maman_ was harsh earlier,” he said. “But we really hadn’t seen Draco yet.”

“He’s my cousin, Vince,” Draco said haughtily.

The shorter boy in the doorway was silent, and the taller one pushed him forward into the compartment. “Okay,” he said as he sat down. “If you’re Draco’s cos’, I guess it’s okay.”

“I’m Jamie,” he said, offering a hand. “Jamie Jeannot.”

“This is Vince Crabbe and Greg Goyle,” Draco said. One of them shook his hand. “They’ve been with my family for _ages_.”

‘With my family’ sounded fairly ominous—like the Malfoys were some sort of mafia group—but Jamie just nodded, and Draco must have been satisfied, as he went on without segue. “So if you’re from France, why are you going to Hogwarts?”

“Well, my mother is friends with Lily Potter—”

“Lily Potter!” Draco interrupted. “Have you met him, then?”

“Who?”

“Harry Potter, of course!” Draco did not pause for him to answer. “He’s supposed to be coming to Hogwarts this year, but Father said he’s withdrawn. It very hush-hush.”

“Right,” said Jamie. It didn’t seem at all hush-hush if Draco had known about it, but it was a relief Harry Potter’s lack of appearance would not be a total upset. “Well, he’s not. Coming to Hogwarts, I mean.”

“Why not?” Draco demanded.

Jamie shrugged. It was easy—startlingly easy to dig into the seed of distain for ‘Harry Potter’ his mother had planted with the other memories. “I guess Lily’s like your dad. She doesn’t care for Hogwarts.”

“Lily Potter’s _nothing_ like my father,” Draco said fiercely. “For one, she—”

Just then, the door to the compartment slid open. Appearances aside, Jamie was starting to regret not having his glasses on.

“Draco,” one of the three figures stepping in whined. “You were _supposed_ to find me when you got on the train. You said you would, you know.”

The three girls were, apparently, three more people Draco had already known. Jamie was starting to feel glad he had been left with his, er, cousin—he knew no one, and Draco seemed to know _everyone._ There was some shuffling about to fit the three of them in; Jamie realized he would have to move Pudge’s container off the seat. He took the chance to dive his hand in by cracking the lid, and came away with his glasses and only one new tear in his sweater.

“What on _earth_ is in there?” the first (and loudest) girl demanded. With his glasses on, Jamie could see she had dark hair that cut off at her chin and bangs straight across her forehead, and she would have been pretty had she not been scowling at the basket.

“My mother’s cat,” he said glumly. “She made me take him.”

“Is he part kneazle?” the second of the three girls asked. The others seemed surprised she asked—or perhaps surprised to hear her speak, as she turned slightly pink and seemed to be trying to turn herself into part of the seat, directly across from Jamie by the window. “I saw the six toes,” she muttered.

“He could be,” Jamie said. He didn’t know much about kneazles, though he was sure Lily had mentioned them at some point. “He’s a real terror, though.”

The first girl, sitting between Draco and Greg, nudged the blond boy (who was, now that Jamie could see him properly, practically the yang to his yin; the only way they looked at all alike was the grey eyes, but Draco’s actually suited him) and asked, “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

That began another round of introductions. The first girl was Pansy Parkinson, who had known Draco _forever, of course;_ the one who asked about kneazles and now seemed very intent on becoming part of the seat she had sunk into was Millicent Bulstrode, from the Bulstrode family, which Jamie got the picture was supposed to make up for some flaw he had yet to see; and between him and Vince was Daphne Greengrass, who said about as little as Millicent but giggled quite a bit.

“And this is Jamie Jeannot, my cousin,” said Draco.

“Draco’s cousin? On what side?”

“Second cousin—through the Blacks. He’s friends with Harry Potter.”

“Friends?” Jamie said. He was beginning to feel in over his head, being defined as Draco’s cousin and now a ‘friend’ of Harry Potter. He probably should have expected the second bit, now that he considered it, and he supposed it was better than if he had actually come as Harry Potter himself—well, not better, but—“ _Knows_ , more like. I wouldn’t say we’re friends.”

“Well, what’s he like?” Pansy asked. “I’d ask him myself, but Draco says he’s not coming to Hogwarts.”

_Very_ hush-hush.

“He’s not?” Daphne asked. “Why not?”

“Well, he’s gone to get a proper education, hasn’t he?” Draco said. “He’s _Harry Potter_ ; he’s not just going to go off to some _school.”_

“I bet he already knows _loads_ of magic,” said Pansy. “He’s on Witch Weekly’s Top Ten Most Magical.”

That was news to Jamie—news he imagined made his face match Millicent’s with his utter disinterest. “Lily said he’s got a tutor, or something,” Jamie said. “But he got his wand way back, yeah. They’ve been teaching him magic a while already.”

“You as well, then?” Pansy’s expression had turned calculating. “You’re not from the UK, are you? Not with that accent—so you must have been living with them, to know _the_ Harry Potter so well, so they must have taught you _something.”_

“I don’t know him well at all,” Jamie insisted. “I just stayed with my Uncle a bit, and he’s practically Harry’s father. We’re not close. Not close at all.”

“So did they or did they not?”

“Did they what?”

“Teach you anything!”

“Oh,” said Jamie. “Well, a bit.”

“Come on, then,” said Draco impatiently. “Father’s taught me loads already, of courses. But what’ve they taught you?”

Jamie sighed, pulling his wand out from the pocket his Mum had ordered sewn along his shirt sleeve. He wasn’t exactly pleased to have five pairs of eyes on him, and he wasn’t sure what to show them.  He didn't want to look like an idiot, but he didn’t want put all his cards down, either, especially since he wasn’t sure at all how his cards lined up to anyone else’s. Something simple—well, something he was confident he could actually do, then; he cleared his throat—

The compartment door slid open. “Has anyone seen a toad at all? A boy’s lost his.”

They let out a collective breath, turning to inspect the new addition. She was clearly a first year, already in her brand new school robes, and she had curly brown hair bushier even than Jamie’s without his potion. It looked like it had been half-brushed, too, leaving some sections of curls more separated than others.

“No, we haven’t,” Draco said snippily, crossing his arms over his chest and looking her up and down like he was unimpressed by her intrusion. “And if we had, it wouldn’t be in here.”

“Were you doing magic?” she said, ignoring Draco to focus in on the wand in Jamie’s hand. “I’ve only tried a bit myself—I’ve memorized the course books, of course, but I wasn’t exactly going to go about waving my wand at anything. No one in my family is magic at all, and I did have a lot of reading to do to catch up—our history text isn’t really useful for much of anything, so I had to pick up a few other books, of course—and it all seems fairly straightforward, which means there’s probably something more—well, let’s see it, then.”

The eyes had all turned back to Jamie, and while he was altogether lost in the girl’s burst of speech he didn’t suppose he could get out of it for one other set of eyes, so he picked up his wand, gave it a little flick in the direction of his torn sleeve, and mumbled, _“Reparo.”_

The cloth stitched itself back together, leaving it a tad threadbare, but otherwise good as new. For a moment the only sound among them was Pudge’s continued growling, then the girl opened her mouth again. “It helps if you annunciate, you know, and focus; I’ve tried _reparo_ myself and it is as simple as you get with charms—just add in the cognate for what you are trying to fix, and—”

Jamie did not know what a _cognate_ was, but he wasn’t about to ask if it meant she would keep going on. Neither, apparently, was Draco. “We can all tell you’re very good at adding words,” he said. “Weren’t you looking for a frog or something?”

“A _toad_ ,” the girl corrected, then paused, apparently surprised to have been cut off. “Right, well,” she said. “I’m Hermione Granger, if you see it.”

She lingered a moment longer, then hurried out, letting the door slide shut behind her. Everyone seemed to settle more comfortably in their seats with her gone. “ _Muggles,_ ” Pansy said, as though that summed up their feelings.

“She’s not a muggle, though,” Jamie pointed out. “Or she wouldn’t be here.”

“Which is even _worse_ ,” Draco said. “She doesn’t know anything about us, but strutting around like that…”

The rest of the compartment grunted in agreement, and Jamie bit down on his lip to hold back his arguments. It was true—that Hermione Granger had probably only spent a few hours in the magical world, to pick up her books and school things, but she had read the books, and while no one had reacted to his little spell, no one else had volunteered any specific knowledge, either, and she had.

Pansy, Daphne, and Draco fell into conversation about people Jamie did not know about, and Jamie braved Pudge’s basket again to draw out his copy of _The Hobbit._ He’d read it a hundred or so times, but it was his favorite, and Tolkien was a muggle, and that seemed like a tiny rebellion. None of the others paid him any mind, anyhow, except Millicent, who raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

Caught up in his book and occasionally pulled back into conversation with the others, it wasn’t until the snack trolley reached their compartment around half past four that Jamie began to feel nervous again. He put his book back in the basket and watched Vince and Greg play Exploding Snap on the floor amidst the piles of candy they’d bought off the trolley, nibbling on a licorice wand Daphne had offered him. In his pocket, his free hand toyed with his sister’s pendant.

The bushy-haired girl—Hermione Granger—came by again, this time with the boy who had lost his toad and still not found it, the unfortunately named Neville Longbottom _._ Vince and Greg were on the floor by the door, however, and did not budge an inch to let her through, so she was stuck out in the hall and quickly moved on.

A pair of redheads—twins from the redheaded family he’d gone by in the muggle part of the train station—were next to stop by, tossing in a dung bomb. Jamie snatched up and tossed out into the hall, having been victim to Sirius’ pranking enough times to react quickly. They heard someone shriek, and the two boys yelling nonsensically at each other, and several doors slamming shut. A moment later the whole compartment was laughing.

Another red head—a Gryffindor prefect by the badge on his robe—stuck his head in.

“Which one of you threw that?” he demanded.

“You’re letting in the stink!” Draco complained. “Honestly, _Weasley_ , you reek!”

“Was it you, then? A Malfoy, is it?”

“It was your brothers—or cousins, or whatever,” Jamie said, wiping laughter from his eyes. The prefect really was letting in a terrible smell. “They tried to throw it in here. Something about ‘ickle firsties’?”

The older boy looked at him, and then, distracted, looked down, to where one of Vince’s chocolate frogs had jumped on his shoe. He shook it off. “Slytherins,” he muttered, finally letting the door shut.

“Open the window further, Jamie,” Draco said. “Weasleys. They always reek of something. Father says it’s Arthur Weasley’s obsession with muggles that’s killing them—he works for Muggle Artefacts, you know, but a raid on their _shack_ would have him put away for life.”

“How many of them are there?” Jamie asked. He knew some of Lily’s cleverer tricks—getting the telly to pick up a signal through all the magic, especially—were probably just as illegal as anything this Arthur Weasley did.

“More than you can count,” said Draco. “That’s three, and I ran into one our age in Diagon Alley, and I know there’s a girl, and…”

“I’ve heard they all live in a one-room house,” said Pansy, leaning forward. “All of them piled together—for warmth, you know!”

“But that’s horrible!” said Daphne.

“It’s an exaggeration,” Millie said, speaking up again over the top of the Witch Weekly she had borrowed from Pansy. “Da’s been to their place, on Ministry business. They’re out in Devon; lots of space.”

“Probably inherited it from one of the families. It’s a waste, you know; two perfectly good pureblood families, coming to that sort of end…”

Jamie frowned. He was beginning to get tired of Draco’ and Pansy’s apparent obsession with the sort of pure-blood politics Lily had always tried to explain to him, and even the spark of fancy he had for hanging around with people his mother would disapprove of was considerably duller in the face of actually listening to them go on about it. He thought about picking up his book again, but he’d been reading for ages already, and the last time he’d been in the basket Pudge had gotten a claw in his wrist, and _that_ couldn't just be hit with a _reparo._

Then the chatter turned back to the houses.

“I’ll be in Slytherin, of course,” Draco was saying again. “And you, too, Pansy. Daphne?”

“Slytherin,” she agreed with a laugh. Jamie realized he had been sitting next to her for nearly seven hours and they hadn’t had a direct word between them.

“How do you know?” he asked, politely as he could. In truth, he was curious: everyone seemed sure except for him.

“All the Greengrasses have been, haven’t they?” she asked. She seemed genuinely confursed that Jamie would even ask. “Oh—no, I think one of fathers’ cousins—no, that’s not right…”

“Millicent’s for Slytherin too,” Pansy said, cutting her off. Millicent nodded, though she didn’t appear to be paying attention. “And Crabbe and Goyle, of course.” It took Jamie a moment to realize she meant Vince and Greg. “What about you, James?”

He winced. “Jamie, please,” he corrected. “No one calls me James. Especially not at home.”

“He’s for Ravenclaw, of course,” said Draco. “He’s been reading this whole ride.”

“That was _fiction_ , Draco. People read fiction, you know. For fun?” Pansy huffed. She’d said she and Draco had known each other for a long time, but they were occasionally sarcastic with each other the way Jamie knew he and Holly were.

“He’ll be in Slytherin,” said Millicent assuredly.

Jamie naturally recoiled, but Millicent wasn’t even looking up from the paper she’d borrowed off Pansy. “Millie,” Pansy whined. “You can’t just say something like that and nothing else.”

Millicent looked up sharply, scowling. “Don’t call me Millie,” she said. “He’ll be in Slytherin because he’s not a Gryff or a Puff, and because he’s in here with all of us.”

Draco opened his mouth to argue, but then a voice came on over the loudspeaker, telling them to all change into their school robes. The girls kicked them out and changed first, and then the boys, trading their sweaters and jackets for the long black robes that draped to the floor but had fitted sleeves that were snug at the wrists. Above the belt, the buttons reminded Jamie of Catholic cassocks, while the formal gowns added over the top made them all look how he imagined Tolkien’s Nazgûl. The two pieces were slightly different shades; the interior robe was closer to a dark charcoal, and its fabric seemed tough but relatively lightweight underneath the loose black gowns. .

Jamie wondered how soon they would be sorted, how soon the lining of his pockets would change color—to blue, or green, if the others were to believed; to red if all were somehow suddenly right with the world. Or to yellow, he supposed, but he didn’t think Hufflepuff was about to take someone who had it as an afterthought.

That was it then: he wasn’t going to be in Gryffindor. He wasn’t even going to hope for it any more.

As the Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade station, he drug his feet climbing off the train. When the grounds keeper, giant as he was, called the first years to him, Jamie hardly heard, as his ears were echoing with what his mother would say—what _Sirius_ would say—how Holly would laugh—were he not in Gryffindor. As the other first years climbed into the boats, he contemplated turning around and running off into the forest behind them, where no one would ever find him, and he would never have to face the sorting or his family’s responses.

Pansy pulled him into a boat with her and Draco and Daphne, and the thought was squashed. He tried to cheer himself up, He didn’t _want_ to be in Gryffindor, he reasoned. He wasn’t courageous or brave, and he’d rather run away than try to be. And if he were sorted into Gryffindor, he would be expected to be, the way he was expected to be placed in the house at all.

Well, at least he wasn’t here as _Harry Potter_. If _Harry Potter_ weren’t sorted into Gryffindor, it’d be the upset of the century.

 

 

31.

 

_Ah, the young Mr. Potter,_ said a voice. _Along at last, I see._

Jamie jerked his head, causing the hat to fall further over his eyes—all the worse, he couldn’t see the hall’s faces as his identity was revealed—no doubt he was done for now—

_Mr. Potter. This is all in your head, you know._

Jamie stilled. He could still hear out from the hat, even if he could not see, and it was the same as before: a baited silence filled with the whispering and the occasional _tink_ of goblets and shifted cutlery.

_Jeannot, if you please,_ he thought at last. _Not Potter._

_Yes, I see Miss Evans has had her way with you. Your head is a mess, not good at all; all these different pieces! Still, you must be sorted._

Jamie frowned. In his startled moment he’d managed to forget about that.

_You’re afraid,_ said the hat.

_I’m not a Gryffindor,_ he thought back. _I’m not courageous or brave, and all of my family was Gryffindor. But I’m not._

_I would not say you are not brave,_ the hat replied. _You are here, sitting on this stool, and yes—I can feel the terror, oh yes—but you are here. But if you say you are not Gryffindor, I will not put you there. There dwell the brave at heart, and your heart rejects._

Jamie let his head droop, remembering, suddenly, how he had wanted to run away. He was a coward, after all.

_Not just anyone would face the Forbidden Forest alone. But where to put you? I can see your love of books—your true escape, no? But there is potential, oh yes: great potential. Still, there is your loyalty. Such faith you hold for your sister, what you wouldn’t give for her…_

_Holly will kill you if you put her anywhere but Gryffindor._

The hat laughed. Jamie heard someone clear their throat outside the hat. _Perhaps she will, perhaps she will not. Shall I put it to the test?_

I _will kill you if you put her anywhere but Gryffindor,_ Jamie thought vehemently. _I’ll drop you in the lake, or feed you to a giant snake._

_Rude. Where are those manners your mother taught you?_ The hat did not sound particularly bothered. _Of course, which mother do I mean? You better not get your head checked any time soon, Boy. They’ll lock you up tight and never let you out._

A prickle of fear went down his throat, and the hat seemed to laugh again, a much different, colder laugh. Then it went quiet, and Jamie was alone with his thoughts.

_Not alone,_ said the hat, quietly. _Never alone. A word of caution, Boy: Prophets and prophesies are made to be broken. The Prophet who breaks their own prophesy breaks their own soul. Gather her up into something whole._

_What?_ thought Jamie. The words seemed to slip out of his mind—Prophets and souls—no, wholes—

_Not Ravenclaw,_ said the hat, it’s crudely confident, wheezing voice back as it was at first. _Then it’ll have to be—_

“SLYTHERIN!”

Jamie blinked as suddenly the darkness was pulled from his eyes. He felt dizzy at the light, the noise and cheering from the right side of the room. The Professor who held the hat—McGonagall?—tapped him along, and he wasn’t sure how he made it to the appropriate table. He more fell and landed in the seat beside Daphne than sat down, and his ears were ringing so much he barely registered _Jones, Megan_ being sorted after him.

“I told you,” said Holly.

Jamie blinked. It wasn’t Holly, it was Millicent Bulstrode, sitting across from him. Not like his sister in the slightest.

“What?”

He dug in his pocket for the little silver horse, pressing it into his palm.

“Slytherin,” she said. “I told you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***Sorting Hat's song taken directly from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
> 
> Well, hello there! It's been... some time. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, my plans of updating regularly were dashed across the cliff-face of uni plus work, and now that I'm off classes for summer I'm working two jobs (well.... 1.5. but you get the picture.) and it's going to be slow. However, while I have not had much time for actual writing, there has been a lot of work in solidifying the plot and updating my outline! I've also done quite a bit of random research, which mostly ends up with me learning new obscure trivia that I try to work in at some point. 
> 
> So my path forward is currently clearer than ever, and I've been working to squeeze in writing time. I'll do my best to get another chapter out in the next few weeks, but... no promises on when it will be.
> 
> Now, that aside, may I point you in the direction of this [art](http://tulanoodle.tumblr.com/post/110729347614/remember-that-time-your-friend-made-an-illegal) by tumblruser tulanoodle, which may give you a better idea of the school robes--or maybe not. In my head, it's similar to that, but with sleeves closer to Snape's movie sleeves (Alan Rickman made a point about them being tight sleeved) and with the "robes" they wear in the movies over the top for formal occasions.
> 
> ...the main point here is that they're not wearing uniforms like they do in the movies, but robes like they do in the books.
> 
> I also have some very long headcanon about the hat (hatcanon?) which involves spoilers, but the gist of it can be summed up like so: Essentially, the conversation you have with the hat is a conversation you have with yourself. Jamie's headspace is pretty fragmented right now (spoilers?: even more so than you might expect) so with him the hat is extra all over the place.
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading. Your comments and reviews are the force that drives me from feeling nervous to making death threats. Er... my strength. Yeah. That.
> 
> Cheers


	11. What is Written on the Heart, Part III

32.

“Jeannot!”

Harry rolled over in his bed, turning the pillow with him. He was having the most peculiar dream, where he was watching from somewhere high above as a silver horse saved him from a dragon, and…

“ _Jeannot_!”

He rolled again, and collided with a hard surface. His eyes blinked open, though that did little to help, as it was completely dark.

His alarm was going off.

“JEANNOT IF YOU DON’T SHUT THAT BLOODY THING UP RIGHT NOW—”

Harry cursed. No! Not Harry. Jamie. James Jeannot. Jamie.

He quickly rolled out of the other side of his bed, pushing aside the curtains and stumbling out onto the cold stone floor. His glasses were on the the desk; he shoved them on and turned to locate the sound. It was coming from under the bed—where his trunk had been shoved. Of course. He pulled the alarm out as quickly as he could and slammed down the button. The dormitory fell silent.

Hesitantly he looked up. Theodore Nott was standing at the opening of his little section of the shared dormitory, and even in the dark Jamie could see the scowl on his face.

“ _Sorry_ ,” he whispered.

Theodore just spun around and returned to his own section, pulling his curtains shut loudly.

Jamie winced, and glared down at the alarm clock in his hand. It was one of his mother’s successful experiments, to make electronics work around magic. It must have still been set to French time—though he wondered why it was on at all. He hadn’t been using it during the last few weeks’ stay at Godric’s Hollow. Maybe it had been jostled around during the train ride… or maybe Sirius, who had helped him pack, had turned it on. Either way, it certainly wasn’t winning him any friends.

Tentatively, Jamie stuck his head out of his section, curious as to why none of the other four first years had woken up.  Their shared oval dormitory was set with partitions, diving the walls into six ‘rooms’. His room was directly to the right of the door, so he could only see into Blaise Zabini’s section, directly across from him, and Draco’s, in between Blaise’ and Theodore’s. Both boys had their bed-curtains closed. He supposed that was it, then—there was some sort of muffling charm on the curtains. His had certainly quieted the alarm far more than the thin sheet of silvery silk should have.

Jamie sighed, turning around. His own section was smallish, with the bed running along the partition side, a desk against the back wall, and a dresser against the third. Over the desk was a window that looked out underwater, letting in no light at this hour. As the door suck out a bit from the front wall of the dormitory, he got half of a fourth wall, which gave him a bit more privacy than the others. Blaise’s section was the same as his, but Draco’, Theodore’, Vince’, and Greg’s were completely open to the room.

Pulling out the dial that controlled the alarm, Jamie set the clock on his desk—then, thinking better of it, he pulled open the top drawer of his dresser, hoping for a place to hide the muggle item. House elves must have opened up their trunks and stored their clothes in the night, because everything had been neatly arranged and put in place—his robes and cloaks folded in half over hangars in the tall door running along the right, shirts in this drawer, slacks in that. He shoved the clock behind the neatly rolled socks, pushing down the irritation that some house-elf had been in his things. He’d done his own laundry for years—since he’d been tall enough to reach the opening to the machine. It wasn’t to say he would miss the chore, but he did not like other people (or creatures) touching his things. He had a younger sister, after all.

Now that he was up, he wasn’t going to be able to fall back to sleep, drowsy as he was. He pulled out one of the uniform shirts and slacks and tiptoed across the dorm to the far wall, which had a short hallway with toilets on the left, showers on the right, and sinks with mirrors at the end. The showers, to his relief, were all individually sectioned off; he had feared they would be more like those in the gymnasium at his muggle school. Not that he really minded either way—he simply found it easier to relax with his own privacy. It was like the partitioned sections in the main dorm; he hadn’t been expecting them, having grown up on his uncles’ descriptions of the Gryffindor dormitories, and he wouldn’t have minded if it were  completely open, but he was much happier with this set-up.

Finding a fluffy green towel waiting for him in the shower-room, Jamie quickly washed and re-dressed. He had to hunt through the drawers in the sink-room to find which was his. Only one had more bottles, and that must have been Draco’s, from the way the boy kept his hair slicked back. It came as a relief that his hair potion, scar-cream, and various toiletries were all together. He spent five minutes making sure his hair was mostly flat, then another taking care to spread the cream evenly across his forehead, then looked into the mirror again to make sure he didn’t look anything like what people expected Harry Potter to.

Well, there was one thing wrong. He took off his glasses, folding them up and putting them in his pocket. The bathroom blurred, but at least he didn’t look like Harry Potter.

Of course, it did turn up some other problems—nearly tripping into one of the black leather sofas that sat in the middle of the dormitory. And when he got back to his section, he felt like an oliphaunt, shuffling around in his dresser. He did not know where to leave his sleep clothes—there didn’t seem to be a drawer for them—so he folded them up and left them on his bed. Then he turned to the desk and rummaged around until he found his parchment, quills, and ink.

 _Dear Mum,_ he wrote when he had found everything. Then he stopped.

He really did not know what to write. He stood up again, grabbing his robes from the dresser, and pulling them on over his head, pulling the three silver buttons on his chest and the two at his wrists through slowly. How does a child explain to their mother that, despite all her hopes, they had been sorted into the house that everyone said was full of bad people? It wasn’t like she was going to give him any comfort for his failings… if anything, she might come storming the castle to pull him out.  But if he didn’t write her, she would be there by the end of the day anyhow.

He really wanted to write Siri. To seek out some form of reassurance—but what would he be able to say to get his uncle to forgive him? As far as Siri was concerned, “Slytherin” was synonymous with “Bloody Traitorous Git”.  Nine out of ten of his uncle’s stories revolved around getting back at Slytherins for being an ass… or playing a prank on the Slytherins for existing… or a Slytherin trying to pull something and failing, because they were a “Bloody Slytherin Dolt.” No matter what the story, the Slytherins were generally evil, and always grabbing at the long end of the wand for brains.

And now Jamie was one of them.

It struck him, as he considered his uncles’ stories, that he was thinking about them wrong. Or, he was thinking about his situation wrong—the answer to his problems of who to talk to was, as ever, decisively simple. He finished buttoning and sat back down, dipping the quill again, and addressed an envelope: _R. Lupin._

Remus was a good deal more level-headed than Siri, and even if he was ill so often Jamie didn’t see him half so much, he had a certain sense of dependability about him. He didn’t treat Jamie like a five-year-old, the way his mum did, or even like a friend, the way Siri did. No, Remy always treated Jamie like a person—a person worthy of respect and kindness and maybe sometimes a bit of discipline, and even when he sided with Lily in an argument, he was always patient and thoughtful when he spoke to Jamie and Holly, the way most adults weren’t.

On top of that, Remus and Siri were together, and for some reason that confused Jamie and irritated his mum, that was something that Just Wasn’t Done. And while Siri would give anyone who dared say a word about it a hex or two and a stream of insults longer than the Ministry registry (Jamie had heard the stories, told to his mum over late-night glasses of wine when he was supposed to be asleep), Remus wasn’t one to fight fire with fire. He’d just take the abuse and smile and ask if there would be anything else. Jamie had _seen_ that one himself, back at the beginning of summer, when they’d visited Remus at the job he’d had in Diagon Alley. Siri said Remus lacked backbone, and Mum said he was just too polite, but what Jamie saw when the drunk wizard had called him names Jamie wasn’t supposed to know was not cowardice. Remy just didn’t disagree with them. He was wrong, Jamie knew, but that wasn’t the point—more than anything right now, Jamie was waiting for the words his mum and Siri would have for him. He had no clue how he’d bear them.

 _Dear Remus,_ he wrote, feeling worse and worse every moment he waited.

 

_Dear Remus,_

_Hope you’re feeling better. Wish you’d been at the station with us. We ran into some pureblood family. The Malfoys. Apparently being Siri’s brother’s son makes me Draco’s cousin? I sat with him on the train over. Thanks for recommending a book, by the way. Made it a bit less boring._

_I was hoping I could ask you something about Hogwarts. And I don’t want the sort of useless answer mum’d give, or I’d just have written her. And don’t tell Siri about this, please. This question I mean. He’s going to be mad no matter what and I want to figure out how to deal with everything myself._

_In all the stories Siri tells us, there’s always some Slytherin git to blame for everything. ~~But~~ —If Mum hasn’t heard somehow and told you by now, I was sorted into Slytherin. I don’t know why. I just told the hat that Holly would tear it apart if it put her anywhere but Gryffindor, and it put me into ~~bl--~~ Slytherin. However that works. Anyways, I want to know what this means. Am I going to just grow up and be some stupid git no matter what, then? Cause I really’d rather not._

_Is Siri entirely angry? And don’t dumb it down for me, Remus. He always acts like he doesn’t care what I choose when I’m around, but this wasn’t my choice. I wish I’d just been put into Ravenclaw. Or even Hufflepuff. I don’t think Gryffindor was ever really an option._

_Anyways, I’m off to post these before breakfast. I don’t know if people normally get mail their third day here, but I wouldn’t mind so much, you know._

_It seems weird to sign ‘Jamie’ when I’m writing to you. Did you ever get Siri to think of something better than Prongsling? It still sounds like one of mum’s cleaning charms, and there’s Harry to think about..._

_Jamie_

He blew the ink dry and folded the letter shut. Feeling much like Holly, who had devoted the first page of her diary to warning him, Mum, and Siri to get their respective noses out of her business, he printed on the visible outside, _Remus ONLY_ , and sealed it in the envelope the muggle way. Then he took up the quill again, and went back to his first letter.

On seeing it again, he found a new page, and re-started in French.

 

_Dear Mum._

_I’ve been sorted into Slytherin. We arrived too late to write last night. Dorms are very nice. There is plenty of privacy. Please don’t let Uncle Sirius get too worked up about this._

_Give Holly a hug for me._

_Love,_

_Jamie_

 

Well, it didn’t give him the sense of relief that penning Remus’s had, but she’d said he’d have to write, and That Was That.

He let the second letter dry for a minute while he put away his things, and then, in a moment of what he considered brilliance, put it in a second envelope but tied it to the first. That way Remy would have to get his letter first. Not that it would make much of a difference, but Remus might be able to hold back some of Lily’s annoyance at Jamie’s sorting. Well, probably not. But it was worth the effort.

 

33.

He had about an hour before breakfast, which, if he could remember Siri and Remus’ directions well enough, would be more than enough time to get to the owlery and back down. When he tripped over Pudge running back up the stairs for his bag, realizing he might as well play it safe and bring his things with him, he gave up and put his glasses back on. At least until it was light enough to see the floor.

Once he found his way out of the dungeons, he paused only once, when he turned right instead of left coming up the stairs and ended up outside the corridor that Professor Dumbledore had so ominously told them was Strictly Out-of-Bounds. He was not, it seemed, the only one up so early on the first day: the same Weasley twins who had thrown the dungbomb into the compartment on the train were lurking just outside the door.

“Look, George, it’s an ickle Slytherin firstie,” said one.

The other looked positively delighted. “What’s a firstie doing up—

“—and at the _forbidden—”_

 _“_ —and dangerous—”

“—corridor?”

“Please don’t throw that at me,” Jamie said. One of the twins froze—he’d been reaching into his pockets, and if the train incident was anything to go by, their pockets were probably full of dungbombs and other jokes off the list of banned items. Sirius usually had at least a Wiz Zipper—little bits of paper that looked like sycamore helicopter seeds and would undo the first zippers, Velcro, or buttons it came across—and Jamie thought the pair of Gryffindors were very much like how Sirius and his father—and James Potter would have been at that age. “I’m looking for the Owlrey. Could you point me?”

The twins looked between each other, and grinned in a manner that Jamie did not find reassuring at all.  “Of course,” one said.  “Just take a right out of here—”

“—go down that hall—”

“—take the back stairs up—“

“—turn right again—“

“—and then just go to the top.”

“Right,” said Jamie, unimpressed. That didn’t sound anything like the instructions his uncles had given him, so they were most likely leading him to somewhere else he wasn’t supposed to be. “Thanks, then.”

He hurried out, turning right, as he was sure that he had just gone one door short of what he was supposed to. However, when he reached the next doorway, it led to the same corridor. The twins were gone, but it was the same corridor for sure; no one in their right mind would make multiple copies of the hideous tapestry that hung partially down the way, let along _hang_ multiple. This must be what the twins were playing at—the right-hand side corridor must have meant it would _always_ be on the right. His mind felt like a cartoon of snow rolling down a hill and getting bigger as it went trying to think about it, but mum always said magic loved para—para…. _parabole_? No, that wasn’t right…

He frowned and backed up,  then faced the stairway and inspected it. Unfortunately, all four doors on that level were hard to see into, with narrow entrances that  turned so you couldn’t see past. Well, if he was right, he could just turn left and he’d be fine. So he turned left, and stepped in to the chosen doorway—to no luck. It was the same corridor.

Sighing, he gave up and went up an extra flight of stairs. He was all turned around now, anyhow; he doubted his uncles’ directions would be any better than the twins’ at this point.

By sheer luck, while wandering around on the fourth floor Jamie happened across a tall suit of armor. He peered around it— _it will have a six-tailed scorpion on the back,_ Sirius had said. It turned out there was a little nook behind the armor, which three or four people—well, maybe two adults could have fit into, from which the golden scorpion was clearly visible. He followed the corridor up a ways further, and, sure enough, there was a set of stairs winding in steep angles up, which led to a little stone bridge, and from that, a wide spiral staircase that grew narrower and narrower as it reached the top.

The last set of stairs left the cover of the buildings entirely, and gave Jamie’s stomach a jolt when he was suddenly faced with the seven, eight story drop. Not a bad jolt, more one that rekindled his childhood aspiration of becoming a dragon, just so he could go swooping off into the morning sky. He supposed he could also just bring a broom up, but it had been some time since he had flown, so that was probably not the brightest idea. Still, he filed it away, and took one last longing look before turning into the owlery, where he hopped about trying to find an owl that was awake, not too violent looking, and accessible without stepping on _too_ many rodent skeletons.

 

34.

It was fortunate that he had brought his bag along, as Jamie’s method of getting back to the ground level was to simply follow every staircase going down. Somehow that led him back to the forbidden corridor—again—and then, when he had gone down several more staircases, he was suddenly swallowed up by a trick step. His glasses went flying off the side of the step, and he wished then he had stuck to the main stairways, as he wasn’t sure how long it would be until someone else came along, especially so early in the morning.

It was also fortunate that he had somehow found his way to a side staircase leading down towards the Hufflepuff common room, though he would not find out that detail for some time. It was also fortunate that one Hufflepuff upperclassman had been early to rise and, bored with his year-mates still sleeping off the feast, had decided to head to breakfast early.

“You alright there?” the boy asked when, looking up the stairs, he saw a dark head of hair sticking up halfway.

“Um,” said Jamie, craning his neck to try and look down from the awkward angle he’d fallen at. “Not exactly, no. Mind giving me a hand?”

The older boy set aside his bag and, much to Jamie’s surprise, rather than giving him a lift out jumped down into the stair with him. “It’s a short one,” he said with a laugh—Jamie’s surprise must have been written on his face. _His_ feet hadn’t reached the floor, but this boy was well over a foot taller than him, and they were about on eye level with Jamie propped up.

The Hufflepuff found Jamie’s feet in the darkness and gave him a step up, balancing as the smaller boy wiggled his way out—and all of a sudden Jamie popped out, and toppled down several steps.

“You okay?”

Jamie rubbed his cheek ruefully. “I think so. Thanks, I think—is my bag down there?”

“Let me see.”

The older boy’s head disappeared from Jamie’s blurred vision, only to reappear a moment later with the rest of his body, vaulting up out of the step. He laughed on looking down at Jamie, holding out a hand. “I knew all that quiddich would be useful for something,” he said, pulling the younger boy up. “Here’s your bag. I’m Cedric, by the way. Fourth-year.”

“I’m… Jamie. First-year.” He shouldered the bag, checking inside to see that everything was there.

“Anything missing?”

“My glasses,” Jamie admitted. “But… they weren’t in the bag. I think they went off the stairs…”

“Huh,” said Cedric. He stepped towards the railing, peering over—and, with all the abruptness with which he’d jumped into the step, vaulted the banister and disappeared again. Jamie rushed forward.

“These them?” Cedric asked, holding something up. He wasn’t more than ten feet down—still, he could have walked!

“I can’t tell,” said Jamie.

Cedric didn’t try to climb up the wall, but he did take the stairs very quickly, and plopped the glasses onto Jamie’s face before he could say ‘thanks’. “Yours?”

“Yeah,” said Jamie. He reached up to adjust them, not because they needed adjusting, but because he’d never had someone else put his glasses on for him and it just felt off. He hadn’t known it was possible to put on someone else’s glasses for them—Holly always had trouble trying to pull them off, and he’d been poked in the eye enough times to avoid her attempts. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Cedric grabbed his bag from off the stair. He must have been on the Hufflepuff quiddich team, and he was very tall and, well, fit _._ He had said he played a lot, but in a way he reminded Jamie of Sirius, with all the jumping around. Though he seemed a good deal more helpful than Sirius, too, as Sirius would have spent ten minutes laughing before he’d have considered helping Jamie out of a trick. “So what are you doing down here?” Cedric asked. “You’re heading the wrong direction for Slytherin.”

“I _was_ looking for the Great Hall,” Jamie said.

Cedric frowned. “From the Slytherin dorms? The dungeons are on the other side of the hall. And you’re a floor down from the ground level.”

“From the owlery. I started at the top and just followed every stair down.”

The boy laughed, and ushered Jamie up past the trick step. Despite all his bounding about, the older boy kept an easy pace now. “You have to be careful doing that,” the boy warned. If you did end up in the dungeons—I’m not sure anyone knows how deep they go. Well, maybe the Baron. He has been haunting Hogwarts for a long time.”

“The dungeons are colder,” said Jamie. Cedric turned them right, and suddenly the doors of the Great Hall loomed ahead of them. A handful of students had already sat down, and baskets of bread, bowls of beans, stacks of toast, and platters piled with fried eggs, sausages, and tomatoes were steaming wherever the students had sat.

“Can you make it to the Slytherin table without getting lost or stuck?” Cedric asked, nudging his shoulder. “Or should I escort you?”

Jamie felt his face heat up—which was odd, because Sirius always teased him the same way, but with Sirius he just shrugged it off. “I’m good, thanks,” he mumbled, and took a step. “Er… thanks for helping me,” he added looking back.

Cedric smiled, not a hint of malice or trickery. Just a simple, pleasant smile. “Of course,” he said. “Welcome to Hogwarts.”

 

37.

Jamie did not get a letter on his second day, or his third. Of course, he was too caught up in classes to really notice. When his mother had remained absent from the Hogwarts grounds for the whole of Monday and he fell asleep without being whisked away back to France, worrying about home was the last thing on Jamie’s mind. He was far too busy.

 They had at least three classes a day, which did not seem like much until he had to get from Potions to Defense in five minutes. On top of the stairways—which changed, this one leading left in the morning and right in the afternoon, that one swinging about when you were about halfway up—Jamie seemed to have developed a special skill for ending up at the forbidden corridor. He started sticking with Draco’s group to find his way; Draco, Vince, Greg, and Pansy, Daphne when she didn’t fall behind with Tracey Davis (one of the other Slytherin girls) and Millicent when she was in the mood. Pansy seemed to have a good sense of direction, but she also got distracted, and by Thursday they had already had to run from Mrs. Norris, the caretaker’s cat, twice.

“I don’t understand,” Pansy had hissed as they slid into their seats in History. “We shouldn’t have been anywhere near that corridor!”

Jamie had just shrugged, pulling out his books as Professor Binns called out for attendance. “Maybe its cursed,” he’d said. “Or maybe we are. As long as we don’t get caught…”

Pansy just stuck out her tongue, and then they were both distracted by Binns reaching _Jeannot_ on the roster.

History was one of two classes where all four houses were together, and the only one where anyone had fallen asleep on the very first day. Professor Binns was an unfortunately monotonous lecturer; he was a ghost, after all, and legend had it he had died and still gotten up to teach the next day. His syllabus hadn’t changed since he had died, either, Jamie was sure, since the textbooks they used hadn’t been updated since the seventies, and seemed only to cover the goblin wars. It was only the poor alternative of actually listening to Binns that got Jamie to read the dry text at all. He didn’t want to fall asleep—Binns may have been a terrible teacher, but Jamie liked history. It had been his favorite subject back in France, even if he knew the teachers were dumbing down the material.

His other classes were much more exciting—in transfiguration the very first day they had actually started doing magic! It was much more interesting to try and learn when he was actually starting from the beginning, and had a reasonable chance with the spells. Professor McGonagall had them turning matchsticks into needles, which the textbook had listed as a basic aptitude test, though no one else seemed to have noticed that.

“Wouldn’t it be more useful to turn them into pencils?” the Ravenclaw who’d sat next to Jamie had wondered. She must have been muggleborn, or perhaps just extremely practical: magic folk hardly used pencils, preferring quills for writing and charcoal for art. It was impractical and expensive, and one of many things Lily had complained about.

“Pencils are wood _and_ graphite,” Jamie had ventured when no one else responded. “So it would be more difficult, I expect.”

He felt bad, not remembering the girl’s name, but she was a Ravenclaw, and Jamie had enough trouble remembering to never call Theo Theodore and to call Vince and Greg as Crabbe and Goyle when they were around anyone outside of Slytherin. He would probably remember the other houses eventually, and he’d picked up on a few, like Weasley and Hermione Granger and Justin Finch-Fletchley.

Defense, unlike transfiguration, turned out less interesting than he’d hoped from the text, which had been the only one he’d read from front to back over summer. Professor Quirrel, a pale, trembling man who wore a turban (a gift in his travels) and reeked of garlic (to ward off any vampires), had the unfortunate combination of a stammer and a slightly _off_ sense of humor. It left the first years playing guessing game making sense of anything he said, especially since his nervous laugh didn’t always follow his particular jokes. The class was mostly learning about creatures, or listening to stories about the Professor’s year on sabbatical, an epic tale that seemed to have been edited to exclude anything interesting that might have happened.

“I bet he can’t even do magic,” Draco had said after their second class. “Have you seen the way his hand shakes? He’d be casting all over the place. And incanting? _‘Re—re—re—puh—paro!’_ ”

McGonagall, who always seemed to be around when it was inconvenient, had docked Draco five points for that, which Jamie had found unfair—shouldn’t they expect their magic teachers to be able to actually use magic? But then again, McGonagall seemed to dislike Slytherins as a general rule. She was the head of Gryffindor, after all, and biased as they came. Flitwick, who taught charms, and Sprout, for herbology, were the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff heads, but they didn’t seem to pay the houses any different attention.

Professor Snape, on the other hand, was even more biased than McGonagall, just in the other way.  From the first five minutes of the first class, he made his intent clear as he went down the roster calling out Gryffindors with questions none of them knew the answer to. Well, except Granger, but Snape made a show of not calling on her. The only other Gryffindor he hadn’t put under interrogation was the unfortunately named Longbottom, who had looked shocked as everyone else when the Professor just called his name and moved on.

The first class, they had all worked on their own, making a simple boils’ cure potion. Or, Jamie had thought it was simple—he wasn’t sure how the one Irish Gryffindor boy had managed to blow up his cauldron when they weren’t working with anything magical. Horned slugs might have been, Jamie wasn’t sure, but snake fangs? nettles? porcupine quills?

By their second class,Thursday Snape seemed much more subdued, and Jamie would venture to say the man was tired—or, more accurately, sleepy, as he guessed that a _tired_ Snape would be snappish, and this Snape just seemed generally disinterested. He skipped calling out roll, glancing down the list and not making so much as a tick when Tracey and Daphne skidded into their seats half a minute late, and started lecturing on the most common basic ingredients without a word. His teaching style seemed less like Quirrel’s loosely thematic ramblings or Flitwick’s conversational questions and answers, and more like a human textbook. He did not pause or encourage questions, and had a gift for finding the moment you fell behind before singling out students with direct questions. The Gryffindors, he took points for wrongs; the Slytherins, he gave points for rights.  Jamie had only been called on once, and earned points for knowing that the standard “Snake Fang” ingredient listed in their text referred to grass snake fangs. He’d earned three points for that.

After the condensed lecture, Snape set them working on another potion, the Wideye Potion. Jamie, pausing to read the description from their text, tried not to laugh at their tired professor setting them this particular task, ended up paired with Millicent, who he was fine with, and Hermione Granger, who he would rather not be paired with, but neither would anyone else.

It took three minutes for them to start arguing.

“It says to put the billywig stings on the heat first!” she said, thrusting the textbook in Jamie’s face as though he could not read it. Admittedly, he couldn’t, as he’d left off his glasses, but he knew what it said.

“Can you ‘crush snake fangs into fine powder’ in thirty seconds?” he demanded. “Look, just start already, it will save us time, trust me.”

Millicent watched them, unimpressed, until she picked up her pestle and started mashing at the little piles of snake fangs and standard ingredients, solving the argument. Hermione opened her mouth to argue, but when Snape swept by and commented that Millicent should use “more angle”, she gave in and picked up her own, adding to the _click click click_ of stone against stone.

That lasted about thirty seconds before Jamie couldn’t stand it. “Honestly, you’re going to get nowhere like that,” he said. “Look—just crush the fangs first—actually crush them, as in, I dunno, one or two good pushes?—then grind, or you’re just going to have them all big and just waiting to choke whoever drinks this.”

“The book says to _crush_ , not grind” she said.

“You _will_ crush,” he said. He tilted his mortar up towards her, showing her how he’d done it. “Look, I’ve done this before, just—just take it from me, alright? Finding solid chunks in your potion is not fun.”

If she looked skeptical, Jamie didn’t know, because he’d turned back to grinding his bit down, and maybe it was because Millicent started grinding, or maybe that she had decided to pick her battles, but Hermione started grinding too. He ignored how he could practically feel her stewing; he’d spent long enough preparing ingredients for his mother’s potions, and this was the one class where he thought he’d have a chance to do reasonably well.

When he was done, he measured out the six dried billywig stings (which were, by some twist of language, actually liquid) and put them in a little glass beaker, then waited for the other two to finish grinding. When Hermione finally paused, he asked, “Are you ready now?”

“Well,” she said, sounding doubtful, “I think so. I hope this is fine, at least—the text said that ‘fine’ was thirty to eighty parts per touch, but I’ve never actually felt—”

Jamie stabbed a finger into her mortar. “It’s fine,” he said. “Do you want to time—it’s thirty seconds, right?”

They added the Billywig stings. Hermione watched the clock and counted under her breath, and when they added the rest of ingredients they argued again (it was like cooking more than maths, they didn’t need to measure perfectly when they were on a tight time budget) and Millicent stirred the whole mixture three times, clockwise, and that was it.  Hermione sat on the other side of the cauldron from them, arms across her chest as they waited for Professor Snape to come around and check.

“Acceptable,” Professor Snape said when he came around, barely glancing into the cauldron. “Give your extra powder to Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle, and two points to Slytherin. You may leave.”

Vince and Greg, it turned out, had burnt their whole mixture, turning it into a blackened goop that was hardening on the bottom of their first cauldron. They were not the only ones, either; Snape must have set this potion because it would be easy to burn. Jamie gave them the extra powder, gathered his things, and hurried out—only to be pulled aside as he stepped out of the classroom and into a nook. His captor, Millicent, put a finger over her lips and pointed, and not a second later Hermione hurried out, still shoving her book into her bag, but stopped short and looked around. Seeing nothing in any direction, she sighed, fit her book in properly, and started off again.

“Thanks,” said Jamie. He imagined he’d just been spared a long lecture.

Millicent shrugged. “You got us out early,” she said, as coolly as if it were some sort of arranged transaction between them. “You shouldn’t provoke her.”

“Provoke her?” Jamie repeated. “I didn’t provoke her.”

Two raised eyebrows pushed up against the girl’s bangs. “The moment anyone talks to her she goes on for hours. It’s better to just leave her in silence.”

Jamie wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so they turned off, following the path they’d memorized out of the dungeons. They had defense again at one, and study hall from two to five, so they made the best of their extra long break and walked the way that cut through the courtyard, enjoying the last of the sun that had lasted through the week.

When they finally reached Defense, the others were already lining up outside, so Jamie fell into a laughing conversation with Draco and the others, ignoring the nagging feeling that he’d done something wrong. By listening to Millicent—or by avoiding Hermione—or maybe by not letting her be, as Millicent suspected. He was starting to wonder if being in Slytherin wasn’t starting to affect him already. He didn’t want to think about it, so he laughed as Draco recounted for the arriving Ravenclaws how the Gryffindor Seamus Finnegan had once again managed to blow up his cauldron.

He was beginning to get a headache. He didn’t want to think.

 

 

38.

The letters came on Friday. There were three.

 _Mon cher Jamie_ , the first one began, and Jamie felt sick. He shoved all three into the pocket of his robes, and grabbed the piece of toast he had half finished from his plate. Pansy, just sitting down, was unimpressed.

 _“_ Aren’t you going to eat that?” she asked, waving at the remainder of the breakfast he was leaving behind.

He shook his head. _“_ I’ll see you in potions,” he said—or tried to say; around the mouthful, and started off.

He hid in the nook that Millicent had pulled him into the day before and unfolded the first letter again. For a moment, he did not read it—it would take some effort, deciphering his mother’s tall, slanted script. He could imagine her writing. Where had she paused, tapping the end of her fountain pen at her lips? Had she turned her fingers black, trying to get the ink to flow smoothly? Was this her first draft, or had she scribbled it in the margins of her potions journal and re-scribed it?

Eventually he set it aside, unread but thoroughly examined, and opened the second envelope.

Remus’s letter was longer, but his handwriting smaller, in even lines across the page. He wrote with a quill, leaving occasional splatters of ink from where he had written too quickly, his handwriting more legible but an odd mix of print and cursive letters, all slanted. Unlike with his mother’s letter, Jamie wasted no time finding the beginning and reading out.

_Dear Jamie,_

_Congratulations on your first week at Hogwarts! I hope you are finding it as enjoyable as I did._

_I hope you will forgive this letter not being so prompt as your third day; it’s been a full week back here in London. It’s a terrible excuse, all things considered, but I’m on at a new job, and its been a whirlwind getting started. Your mother is finishing up her business here, and Sirius is on a new case at work—he can’t say, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the Gringotts break-in, if you’ve heard about that. Very high profile; it will be good for him._

_Sirius is not at all angry with you—well, he is a bit cross, but that’s only because you didn’t write to him directly. But that aside? He’s just happy you are settling in at Hogwarts. And, pardon the phrase but if anyone knows what it is to be the black sheep in family sorting, it is him._

_The only one to make any fuss at all is Holly, but that’s just her saying “I told you so” whenever anyone happens to mention you, so nothing out of the ordinary. (I believe she’s written you a very concise letter explaining her feelings on the matter, but Sirius and Lily inform me that she is simply doing her part as a younger sibling. I wouldn’t know..)_

_As for your other questions—I’m sure by now you understand the answers, but I’ll do my best anyways. You are not, as you put it, going to become “some stupid git”. I don’t think you have it in you, honestly, and I’ve known plenty of stupid gits in my time. You’ve probably seen the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry first hand by now, but even so, it does not mean that one side or the other is always in the right, or that the two houses can’t play to each others’ strengths as well as their weaknesses. Lily’s best friend for years was a Slytherin, and one our best friends who was a Gryffindor turned out to betray us all, so no matter how out school stories seem to make out Slytherins as the bad guys, that is a drastic oversimplification of the matter. There is nothing innately good or evil about either of the houses, and how you turn out will have more to do with who you are than anything else. I think your mother has raised you to be a decent person, and you’re only eleven, so you’ve an advantage over many people._

_That being said, I want you to be very careful going forward. The same that I just said of you applies to your classmates, but many of them will have been raised around people I would consider untrustworthy, and many even dangerous. Likely they would consider Lily, Sirius, and I in the same light. I believe that you can find your own path, and so does your mother, or she wouldn’t have sent you, so I won’t say more on the matter, but please: try your best never to lose sight of yourself._

_Your mother will be sending along her own letter, I am sure, so I will give this to her to post with it. Again, your Uncle Sirius would love to hear from you. Ask him about the moniker._

_Remus_

 

Jamie took a deep breath as he reached the end of Remus’s letter. He wasn’t sure that what he was feeling was relief, but a certain tightness that had been building in his shoulders seemed to have lost its hold on him.

If Remus was to be believed—and he generally thought Remus was, or he wouldn’t have written him about this—none of them particularly cared that he was in Slytherin. Maybe they’d all expected it. Remus hadn’t said as much, and Jamie supposed that just because Sirius wasn’t angry—if he _really_ wasn’t—didn’t mean he wouldn’t be disappointed.

There was one other thing that caught his eye: the line mentioning Lily’s best friend. There was only one candidate Jamie knew about for that position, as he had a letter for the man in his bag, which in all the excitement of his first week he’d repeatedly forgotten to take along until that morning. Severus Snape— _Snivellus,_ Sirius had called him. Jamie could hardly imagine his mother being _best friends_ with the Potions’ Master. Frankly, he couldn’t imagine Snape as best friends with anyone. Well, that made him feel awful; even someone like Snape had to have friends somewhere, and maybe he was like Jamie’s mother and had grown up to be a much different person. Or maybe he’d been nasty from the start, but in the same way Draco and Pansy could be nasty but mostly okay as long as you didn’t listen too hard. Or maybe Remus was lying, and Slytherin really did turn you into a mean git, and—

Jamie forced himself to turn back to the first letter. He didn’t think Remus was a liar, and he didn’t think Professor Snape was a git, so long as you weren’t Gryffindor, or a bad student, or breathed wrong—

His mother’s French proved a worthwhile distraction.

 

_My dear Jamie,_

_Your uncle is hardly upset with you, my little one, for following in his brother’s footsteps. No matter what house you make yours at school, your home will always be here, with your family, and you will always be welcome home. You know that._

_I must caution you to be careful, of course, but you are my son and I know that you will choose your friends with mind for our situation. Please remember that the same fears we had for Harry we have for you as well. Your friends (and your enemies) will affect us all down the line, and it is imperative you keep the secrets of this house held tight. Do not hesitate to contact us should you feel unsafe. We will always come for you._

_Your sister and leave for France on Monday. The floo will remain open._

_With Love,_

_Liane_

 

It was more informative than Jamie had expected. Not the reassurances; her not showing up to take him away was enough to convince Jamie that he was safe—at least for now—but in the last line. _The floo will remain open_. The floo hadn’t been open since he was—five? six? Whenever he had gone to the Halloween party at the ministry.  Since then, the floo had been shut, and every time they had wanted to return to London they had to drive to Maisons Fantômes, the closest magical village, to take the community floo to Paris, which was also how his mother got to work at the hospital. They’d definitely wasted _days_ of travel time because of it, but Lily had always insisted it would keep the mansion secure.

He wasn’t sure what this meant, but she had been sure to mention it, and it was out of the ordinary. Keeping the floo open would surely be handy, but Sirius had tried to convince his mother for years, and she’d never given him enough time to argue the point, at least not where Jamie could hear.

Finally, he took the other piece from the first envelope. It was a lined page, most likely torn from one of Holly’s school notebooks. As Remus had warned, the letter was extremely short, even in Holly’s gigantic hand.

 

_Dear Jamie,_

_I told you so._

_Love,_

_Holly_

Jamie was smiling when someone cleared their throat. He looked up, startled, pulling the letters to his chest.

“What are you doing?” Draco asked. He was flanked by Vince and Greg, no one else in sight.

“My family wrote,” said Jamie. He quickly folded the letters back into the envelopes, struck with the frantic notion that he shouldn’t let Draco see them. Draco, it seemed, wasn’t interested.

“Well you’re going to be late,” the boy said. ‘And the class room is right there.”

 

* * *

 

39. 

The first week of the quarter was always the worst.

Of course, by the second week, students would start losing track of the lessons, and by the third, some would have the audacity to attempt to speak during lecture—even in the dungeons. And then the fatigue would set in, and last the next weeks until it became part and parcel to the inglorious burden of being an educator, and by mid term the students would be earning more detentions than the staff had time for—

The first week was always the worst.

A staff meeting at six AM on a Friday was nothing out of the ordinary, but.

The Headmaster’s atrocious tennis ball colored robes were nothing out of the ordinary, but.

Flitwick’ and Sprout’s incessant morning chatter was hardly out of the ordinary, but—

The first week was always the worst.

“Coffee, Severus?”

Aurora Sinistra was tolerable. Endurable. As was the tradition with teachers who had not attended Hogwarts themselves, she had been sorted on arrival—Slytherin. Severus hadn’t known why until he sat next to her, as always, at a staff three years later and realized he knew nothing about her. She always offered him coffee, and knew to pass the sugar along with it. If he had any reason to find her motives suspect, he would consider her dangerous.

As it was, he took the coffee, heaping three spoons of sugar into the cup and stirring it three times, counter-clockwise. There was no intent to this, no more purpose than ritual. With magic every ritual had its purpose, but without intent, its purpose was meaningless. Meaningless, like trying to teach children the art of potions-making. Meaningless, like trying to teach adults who had not been taught as children the art of potions-making.

The first week was always the worst.

Severus drank the coffee.

The Headmaster droned on about something of immeasurable importance, he was sure, and Filch bragged of this and that detention and huffed when Dumbledore would not let him set students cleaning long-abandoned rooms in the dungeons. They should not encourage students to go wandering in the forgotten depths of the castle. Who knew what they would find, or if they should get lost—heavens forbid they be lost. That was Severus’s prison, after all. It was not fit to hold the children.

Minerva reported her first years were a mixed bunch, and that she was worried with so few one or would be left without any close friends their age. There were two she worried about, Granger and Longbottom. Granger was insufferable, in Severus’ opinion; even among first years she stood out as an irritation that threatened to hang over his head for the next seven years. Longbottom was a matter Severus would not touch with a ten-foot pole.

Sprout mentioned the divisive rift typical of first-year Hufflepuffs already forming. Unlike McGonagall’s Gryffindors, she had thirteen new brats to corral, but she was also the only core professor with a minute of spare time, so Severus paid her grumblings no mind. Flitwick’s assessment was equally disinteresting; his usual system of pairing over-achieving students with potentially under-achieving ones was marred only by what looked like an uneven breakdown.

“And yours, Severus?” the Headmaster asked.

“Passable,” he said. The other Professors minds were on breakfast, and his mind was on the upcoming two hours with the very Slytherins and Gryffindors they spoke of—two hours of them.

“Come now, Severus, you must have more than that?”

Severus wondered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to have the appropriate anatomy to spit venom, and whether the sensation would come to be associated with the same gut feeling of anger and and revolt that rose with bile every time the Headmaster pressed him with that vile twinkle in his pale blue eyes.

He swallowed the feeling. “Draco Malfoy has asserted himself as the most important, flanked by Pansy Parkinson, who debates pushing him aside and claiming the lead for herself. The rest accept their leadership, if not because they do not respect it, then because they do not care or are entirely oblivious. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle and perhaps Tracey Davis will require some form of tutoring to pass their classes. Theodore Nott has all but estranged himself from the rest. Two students have cats, while four have owls. Two students speak French fluently, and are likely to start a school-wide revolution, if they ever interact. Only two students this year are blond, which is a statistical anomaly in and of itself. Would you like me to go on?”

“That will do, I think,” Minerva said. Like Severus, she was not a morning person, and consequently was unamused by Severus that early in the morning, she had often told him. “I think that finishes up the list, Albus.”

“Yes,” said the Headmaster. “Most likely. Does anyone else have anything? No? Time for breakfast then, I suppose.”

Most of the teachers stood up right away, but the Headmaster was still looking directly at Severus, so he stayed in place. Sinistra patted his shoulder as she stood, but turned and struck up a conversation with Professor Vector before she was even out the door. Minerva was the last one out, to which the old man said— “Close the door behind you, would you, Minerva?”

It clicked shut and left them in silence. “Well?” Severus said. “Was there something you needed?”

Dumbledore stood and turned to address the fire that was, even at this hour, blazing in the hearth. “Lily Potter has put a desist order in at the Ministry,” he said. “No more of my inquiries into the matter of Harry Potter will be responded to, unless they directly relate to my duties for the Wizengamot.’

After only a week? Granted, when the Headmaster put his mind to something, no path would go unfollowed in his exhaustive searches for answers, but that… “That must be a new record. How many inquiries does it take to have proof of harassment? Eight?”

“Ten,” Dumbledore corrected.

“What good would it possibly do you?” Severus asked. “She has said her son will not be attending, and if she is the same woman at all as she was before, that means her son will most likely never so much as set foot on Hogwarts grounds.”

“You know as well as I that he will be needed when Lord Voldemort returns.”

The name hit him like a poorly cast stunning spell to the gut, choking the air out his throat and sending a spider-like chill crawling down his spine. Even now, with the mark long disappeared from his arm, it made the nerves tense, expecting pain.

“He is just a boy,” Severus said, chiding himself for the pathetic reaction. “Even if he could do any good—no matter how much he is needed, no legal system in the world would put him into your hands to use, let alone without his mother’s cooperation.”

“Exactly,” said Albus. “I want you to write to Lily, Severus. She’s taken matters into her own hands long enough. Even if her son is not at Hogwarts, his education needs to be seen to properly. He will return, Severus, and even her stubbornness will not last long when she realizes we must work together. Why delay until then?”

The headache he had thought doused by sugar and caffeine was beginning to return. He stood. “I will not debase myself with this,” he said. “She has made it clear that she wants nothing to do with me. Even if I thought your ridiculous obsession with bringing Harry Potter into your control were warranted, I still would not write to her, because it would do nothing but harm your cause. Spare us both the disgrace.”

Dumbledore hummed under his breath. “I’m beginning to find your attachment to Miss Potter less endearing than I once did, Severus. Of all people, it shouldn’t be _you_ I need to encourage to let go of his emotions, my boy.”

It was only careful years of perfecting his control in situations such as these that kept Severus’ shoulders from rising, or his jaw from clenching, but the way the old man peered at him, nearly silhouetted by the fire, it felt as though there was no hiding, and so he opted for the alternate route: escape.

“Severus,” the man called as he reached the door. “Keep an eye on Quirrel, would you?”

It threw Severus enough to look back, but the old man was looking into the fire again—considering making a floo call, perhaps, to some office at the ministry to send harassment to _her_ , no doubt.

Severus returned to the dungeons, and attempted to put the conversation out of his mind. He did prefer to avoid all thoughts related to her, to keep from the temptation of disrupting the silent ceasefire she had allowed. He busied himself setting out the ingredients needed for the first years’ potion, wondering on why the Headmaster would want _him_ to keep an eye on Quirrel. It was obvious the glorified muggle studies teacher had had a run-in with something much darker than a simple vampire coven—anyone with a day’s reading into the dark arts could tell that—but did Dumbledore honestly expect a man like _that_ to delve into the arts himself? From anyone else, Severus would have taken the request as a sign that he himself was slated to take over Quirrel’s pathetic claim on the Defense position, but hoping on any such promises from the Headmaster was a sign of foolish ignorance he had long grown past.

What few of the first year Gryffindor’ and Slytherin’s potions had survived the fourteen hour brewing period he had put under a stasis charm, while the rest had left to bur, so when the tired-eyed devils flooded his classroom it was immediately obvious which ones had gone wrong.

“Today,” he said when the bell rang and they were in their seats—and they were all in their seats when the bell rang, he was vaguely pleased to note—“We will be discussing care of the equipment.”

For the next two hours, he lectured, demonstrated, and, more often, made example of the rat-like children, many of whom had never cleaned so much as a plate in their lives, on how to clean the various components of a potions lab. They paused to attempt to properly finish and bottle the three potions that had turned out acceptable—not that he would ever give them to another for earnest use, unless he were attempting to poison them—and then used the sludge of the other potions to demonstrate how to properly measure in a beaker, but then he set them cleaning those, and the cauldrons, and dividing up the tasks among themselves like cleaning the floors, counters, and equipment, down to the stir sticks.

The last brat in the lab was the boy who had taken on the task of gathering the clean beakers and returning them to their pegged racks. He had just returned the last and shut the cupboard door when the only other student in the room left, and did not dawdle in his packing up.

Jeannot, Severus named him, watching from the corner of his eye as he gathered the last of the Wolfsbane sprigs into the jar. A wild-card addition to his year—his file listed attendance at a French primary school, though he was not muggleborn, and he at least had some apparent experience with potions. Beyond his squabbling with the Granger girl, for which Severus could not fault him, if the boy had any personality at all it had not shown itself.

“Sir,” the boy said suddenly. Severus blinked, an action he had been told was rather frightening on his face, and to the boy’s credit he did not flinch. There was something in his hand; parchment—no, an envelope. “Sir, I have a letter for you, from my mother.”

The boy had a slight accent, one that would be lost in the mix of voices found at Hogwarts. “Your Mother?” Severus repeated. His mind filled in the name: Liliane Jeannot, who signed forms ‘Liane’. He did not know her.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said. His wide eyes were a dull grey, which was somehow unsettling. Maybe it was the look itself. “I don’t know why she didn’t just post it, but she insisted…”

Severus waved him off and indicated the boy should drop it on his desk as he turned to wash his hands of Wolfsbane residue.

When he turned back around, he put the envelope out of his mind as the first of his next class had started to wander in. It wasn’t until near the end of the next class that he remembered it, sitting on one side of his desk. He picked it up. The seal was unmarked, a plain circle set in the wax, but when he turned it over in his hands and saw his name scrawled across the front, _Professor Severus Snape_ , underlined in a quick stroke with a single, practiced loop just in the center, he knew, and his stomach gave a great lurch.

It was as though the whole world had shifted. Everything looked the same; one of the Hufflepuffs who had been looking up was giving him a strange look, but the rest were still looking down, frantically scribbling away, as though their Professor did not sudden hold the weight of the world in his hands. But this, this letter he had not even read, this could change everything.

“Five minutes,” he heard himself say when his voice echoed back at him off the stone walls. The staring student jumped and looked back down, and several of the others protested.

“Sir,” said a particularly troublesome Ravenclaw who fancied herself a prodigy for coming in head of her class. “It’s only a quarter ‘til. We still have ten minutes, at least—”

“You may turn yours in now, Miss West, if you are so confident you would waste your time _speaking out of turn._ ” She pressed her lips together tightly, and Severus sneered. “No? Five points.” He paused. “Four minutes, Miss West.”

He could insult her, but that was only because it took no effort. He forced himself to set the letter down, and occupied himself pacing between the desks, watching for Ravenclaws early to the flux of cheating that began without fail in their third year, but it was hardly a distraction. The letter sat on his desk, seeming to sing some siren song. He forced himself to linger at the back, where he would not be tempted to open it prematurely.

“Quills down,” he called the moment the hands of the clock hung above his desk reached eleven fifty. “ _Down,_ Miss West.” He waved his wand with a charm he’d picked up from Flitwick, and the papers jolted out from beneath the frantic quills, and as he swept to the front, they floated up after him, arranging themselves into an alphabetical stack midair before dropping down onto the desk.

There was silence in the classroom as he reached the front. “Well?” he snarled. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

For a moment they all stared. This was why they were Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, not Slytherins. His face contorted itself into something akin to a snarl, and the effect was as though he had let out a great roar, for the students jumped and nearly tripped over each other trying to get out the door. Even West, prone to trying to argue her way to a better grade before he had even started marking her papers, left without a word.

Sometimes magic took no effort at all, no spells or coherent process; he slashed his wand through the air and the door slammed shut, the lock clicking with enough force to echo through the hallway. He fell upon the envelope, or he snatched it up, shaky hands struggling to open it. He retreated back as quickly as he could as he pulled the pages, into the narrow corridor hidden behind the desk, which led to his office, but did not travel the whole way, for he had torn away the envelope and unfolded the three pages filled with tall and tilted script, and he dove into the letter that opened without greeting or preamble—

 

_You will not touch my son. You will not make anything of his presence. You will make no attempts to converse with him outside of what your role as Professor requires, and then you will make no efforts of any sort to distinguish him from his peers._

_If Albus Dumbledore should ever show signs of interest in my son, you will dissuade him of pursuing that train of thought. If he should become aware of my son’s identity, you are personally responsible for removing my son from his reach._

_You will not touch my son._

_The only thing that I would trouble myself to stoop to communication with you over is a matter of potions. I have done my best to avoid this, but it has become apparent that it is unavoidable, and any further delay will put things too late. My confidence extends only to your competence as a Potions Master, and to the pervasiveness of your indomitable ego. In those two areas alone I believe you are reliable._

_The potion I would request you turn your mind to is the Wolfsbane Potion. I have no doubt you heard of it, if not in the initial publication than in the scandal surrounding Damocles’ Order of Merlin and the subsequent riots._

_Damocles has washed his cauldrons of the matter, and is by now half-blind in any case, so my attempts to question him about the finer points of the potion have proven useless. Even were he still in the throes of innovation, he cares not for the well-being of the men and woman his potion medicates._

_To that end, I have taken it on myself to improve this potion, but it is far from my field of study, and while I have the skill necessary to brew the potion to the original specifications, all my attempts to modify the recipe have failed, as werewolf biology is so different from that of any other human being, magical or not. Large-scale trials are, of course, impossible in this instance, and I face a need to make the adjustments far quicker than thorough investigation could take place, in any case. In special regards to the werewolf-related legislation of late, there is only one available subject for trials, and he should no longer be forced to bear this pain._

_Should you have any ideas to abuse this consultation, it is not only my wrath that you will face._

_Post directly to my name. The owl will find me. I will hold you accountable for any breech in confidentiality._

_L. Potter_

 

Severus read it through once, then twice, then a third time, lingering on the phrases that were so uniquely _hers—the pervasiveness of your indomitable ego._ It was cold, it was biting. It was distant. It was trusting beyond any stretch of the imagination could be possible, though she alone truly had the power to make his life any more wretched than it already was, but he would take blackmail over the frozen silence she’d placed between them for the last nine years.

It tore something loose in him, to read that letter—to him! Handwriting he though he’d never see again, save from the distance of newspaper clippings and misplaced paperwork. Little did he know, though he could feel the ice beginning to melt, this was only the beginning: the first drops of the oncoming glacial flood, with all the turbulence and violence of nature tearing against man’s tenuous survival.

If in the darkness he let out a strangled sob, only the walls of the castle would ever know to tell.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, let me tell you: this chapter was simultaneously much fun and greatly painful to write. Fortunately for me, by lunch every day I usually need some sort of distraction from work. On the other hand, there was a lot of ground to cover here, and it's been a kind of intimidating task, especially for me, whose logical reaction to 'oh look I'm beginning the massive amounts of letters that sent in this series, better be sure to give everyone their own writing style and, you know, develop their handwriting, with physical samples.
> 
> The moral of the story is that its a very good thing I have the next eleven chapters formally outlined (the rest of the story informally so), as otherwise it would be very difficult to be sure that I am getting everything that needs to be mentioned mentioned and all the ground I need to cover cover. That being said, this is a... rather ambitious amount of undertaking of plot, and so while I have others read to be sure it makes sense, I'm sure there's going to be clarifying questions incoming. Feel free to ask! I can't guarantee that the answer won't be "All will be revealed in time", but it does help me to know where y'all get a bit derailed. 
> 
> As always, your support keeps the ink in my pen free-flowing! Comments and discussion fill me with a very special giddiness and are one more weapon against the plague of laziness.
> 
>  
> 
> \-----
> 
> One final note that I want to add, which is a bit off the lighthearted side and more onto the technical and a follow-up to an earlier a/n: this plot eventually deals with a transgender character in a major role. This is not a story about what it means to be trans in general (there is no possible way that story could be written, in my mind) but it is something that greatly lends to this character being who they are. If that's going to bother you, you're welcome to abandon ship while the story is ahead. Anyhow, this doesn't need to be discussed at all, I just want to leave it here as a heads-up.


	12. What is Written on the Heart, Part IV

 0.

 

_“Hello?” she called, stepping onto floorboards that were creaking under her feet. Distracted, she looked down and shifted her weight from one foot to another, making them groan far more than they should have for someone so small._

_The floors were a mess, coated in what must have been at least a centimeter of grime. Nothing was growing, but that was more because the only light was what came in through the cracks between the boards on the windows, leaving zigzag patterns catching on the dust her steps stirred up._

_“Hello?” she called again. There had to be someone here. There’d be no point to her being here if there weren’t someone here. Besides, it was terribly dark, and she wasn’t sure how far she would be able to go without tripping._

_Something rippled in the shadows. She could see it glinting in the light, and more dust stirred up, though the floorboards did not creak._

_“Hello? I’m sorry if I startled you.”_

_The darkness moved again, and suddenly she found it, if only by the glint of two beady eyes. It spoke to her, voice as airy as the rustling pages of a book._

_“What are you doing here?”_

_“I’m not sure,” she said. “Looking for someone, I suppose.”_

_“Looking for who?”_

_“Not sure. It’s not you, is it?”_

_“You shouldn’t be looking for me.”_

_“Maybe it’s someone else, then,” she said. “Is there anyone else here?”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_She shivered, suddenly aware of how cold it was. It must be snowing outside._

_“Would you help me look?”_

_“Help?”_

_“Its very dark,” she said. “And I don’t know the way.”_

_There was silence, then the dark shape came closer. Something told her she should feel scared, but she had no more reason to distrust this figure than it did her._

_Then it reached out, and its hand came into the thin lines of light. For a moment she thought it skeletal, but it wasn’t, there was skin hanging loosely around the bones, terribly pale in the moonlight. She swallowed and reached out._

_The moment their fingers touched, the floor gave way, and she plummeted down, down. The figure, falling beside her, watched on in silence._

_“It’s very dark,” it said, echoing her, voice gaining some body and sounding like a poor imitation of her own. “I do not know the way.”_

_35._

 

In the kitchen of the Potters’ cottage in Godric’s Hollow, with a piece of parchment folded in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, Remus sat and watched as Lily tore apart the kitchen.

He’d always liked this house. Lily had done a wonderful job rebuilding it, keeping most of the layout the same, sticking to the same tones of wood and even the same patterning on the wallpaper. There hadn’t been a potions lab in the basement before, and while she’d remembered some of the nooks and crannies, she hadn’t remembered all of the quirks, like the loose brick in the kitchen side of the central fireplace that James had always hidden sweets in when there were extras, or the creaky floorboard on the third stair that they always had to hop over sneaking in and out in the middle of the night.

He hadn’t spent much time here. Certainly not in comparison to Sirius, who had ended up with his own room, the one that was now Holly’s, when his parents had cut him off. Or when he had run away, depending on the telling. Remus had lost track of the numbers towards each, but in both versions Sirius had ended up at the Potters’.

In his younger years, Remus had envied him for it. He always felt welcome in the Potters’ home. Though James had told his father _everything,_ there had been nothing but homely welcome from the aging couple. His own parents had always loved him, more than he would know for a long time, more than they should have, perhaps. But when he saw the way Sirius would wander into the kitchen to grab a snack like he had never known any kitchen but that one, or when he saw the way Mrs. Potter would scold him for taking pastries but always made sure to have a few of his favorite scones in the basket on the counter, it was the sort of familial connection that Remus knew he would never have with his muggle mother, or his father, who was more interested in studying what made magical creatures different than what made his son the same.

Now, with Holly upstairs and Harry off at Hogwarts, James and his parents gone, and Sirius off at work, the cottage had lost some of its comfort. Though the magic of the village had kept many things about it the same in the rebuilding, it was undoubtedly a different house. He wondered how much damage the destruction of Voldemort had done to the spirit of the place.

“Let me see it again,” Lily demanded, turning away from the counter where the contents of the cupboard were precariously stacked and threatening to collapse onto the floor. Remus held out the letter again. She had already read it six times.

It was Monday, the day after Harry had left for school, and Remus had just been talking himself into getting out of bed when there had been a knocking on the wards. He’d gone out onto the front porch in nothing but his pants and a robe, earning a scandalized look from a muggle. She must have noticed the owl outside the wards; the front step was so heavily piled with Notice-Me-Not charms that if he lost track of what he was doing even he would become lost entirely. He’d nodded to her and taken the letters from the bird, which flew away and distracted the woman while he stepped back in. Doubtlessly she had forgotten all about it within the minute.

It had been a surprise to get a letter from Harry, more so because there was another letter, addressed to Lily, attached, but none for Sirius. Remus would always hold a certain affection for Harry, having spent so long looking after him in his infancy, but as the children had grown older they’d come to prefer to spend time with Sirius. Sirius was better with children, after all, and under their mother’s strict control he must have seemed like the perfect rebel to go running after into trouble. If Remus had a knut from Sirius for all the times he had whisked through the door of Grimmauld Place and collapsed into laughter about confusing Muggles in one way or another with the children (never a thought for the legality of any of his mischief, of course), he’d have emptied the Black vaults. But his own conversations with Harry were limited mostly to their shared love of books. He spoke to Holly even less, as she was more extraverted and, though she hadn’t said it outright, did not see what her brother did in their less-fun uncle.

“I don’t understand,” Lily said, voicing his own thoughts. “Why did he write _you?”_

That was the question, really. Remus did not know whether to feel flattered or resigned to fate as the ‘safe’ option.

Lily dropped the letter and took up her grease stick again, continuing the line of runes she had marked along the wood paneling that backed the cupboard. The chain extended completely around the room, flowing seamlessly around the door frame into the next room, each mark in Lily’s elegantly slapdash hand. It was more runes than Remus had seen since sitting his NEWTs, and, frankly, a more impressive piece of magic than most non-academics would ever attempt. And this was the practice piece, too—Godric’s Hollow was much smaller than the manor in France, and the manor had much more magic seeped into the land than the cottage. That was Lily for you. It was no wonder she would take up the banner against Dumbledore when she practiced magic like this on her own.

And it was all for Harry—Harry, who had been sorted into Slytherin and given his mother only a few lines of pointed brevity, from what he’d seen. French was not Remus’ strongest language, by any stretch, but even he had been able to imagine Harry’s voice for each clipped line. It was not a happy imagining.

“He must have been nervous,” Remus reasoned. “Slytherin was not his house of choice, and from all the stories he’s been raised with, I doubt there’s a single good impression.”

“I’ve given him plenty of good impressions,” Lily said coolly. She had on her usual face of offended consternation, the one that said quite clearly, _How dare you imply that_ I _have done any wrong?_ It was her version of Albus’s sad smile, the one that said, _I have the weight of the world on my shoulders and have made a grievous error. Pity me._ “Just yesterday I told Holly off for insulting the house.”

“Still,” said Remus. “You must admit there is reason to be concerned.”

“Is there?” Lily moved on from the cabinets, marking the section of wall left before the door frame, and Remus stood, following her into the front room, the letters left behind on the table. He settled again in the window seat across from the fire, where the chain ended, and watched as Lily cleared the picture frames that filled the next wall with a charm that stacked them neatly on the coffee table.

“You can’t think it’s entirely safe for Harry to be housed with the children of Death Eaters? Sirius told me Lucius Malfoy’s son is entering this year. Of course we can’t attribute anything to the boy, but ten years down the road? What will it mean that these are the children Harry has spent his time with?”

“Remus Lupin, judging children for the crimes of their parents. What a horrid thought.” She pushed him to one side  to reach the window, just enough of the grease stick left to complete the smaller circle that closed the chain, and finally sat down. She was sweating lightly, and when she pushed her hair out of her face it left behind a red smudge of grease. “Don’t be _mild,_ Remus. I’m sure there plenty of things we can attribute to the boy. He has been raised by Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black. I somehow doubt the likelihood of his being another Sirius.”

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you still here? I half expected you to storm Hogwarts at the news.”

“Have you read the paper this morning?”

“Yes?”

“And was there anything out of the ordinary?”

“You mean the Skeeter article?”

The article, three paragraphs long, had been relegated to the corner of the fourth page of the Prophet. It was short, considering. Though her career was just starting, really, Skeeter was already becoming known for her articles plumped with conversational add-ins and rhetorical questions. Unfortunately her articles were spreading beyond the confines of _Witch Weekly_ at an alarmingly consistent rate.

“Exactly,” Lily said. “If anyone had figured out that _Harry Potter_ really had gone to Hogwarts, I’m sure she would have filled the front page. I almost feel sick, imagining it—the career she could have made, exploiting my son. Her article about the withdrawal application was bad enough.”

“That doesn’t negate the inherent danger of his placement in Slytherin.”

‘It might be safer there, considering. Hiding among enemies. Would Dumbledore think to look there? He’d be mad, from what lies we’ve fed him so far. And when the war comes, any alliances he might be able to forge with his peers will help him, and hurt Voldemort.”

“Alliances?” Remus echoed. “How about friendships?”

“Friendship among Slytherin _is_ an alliance,” Lily said. “There’s nothing more to it.” Remus had nothing to say to that. He had only ever been on cordial terms with a handful of Slytherins, and Lily had spent several years friends with Severus Snape. She knew more than he did on how the house operated, surely—though the idea that there would be no true friendship in Slytherin sounded painfully stereotypical.

But Lily was up off her feet now, and Remus followed her outside. She closed the door, re-connecting her rune circuit, and came around to the window. For a moment, she hesitated, glancing back over her shoulder at Remus, but then she shrugged and pulled out her wand.

The spell, for all the set up, consisted of no more than a sentence of the peculiar sort of Old English many such spells were formed in and a glowing triangle drawn with precise wand motions within the circle. For a moment Remus thought it had not worked, but then the triangle faded and the circle of runes flashed white. The light was nearly unbearable, but Remus kept his eyes open as it chased down the chains of ruins in both directions, moving rapidly through the other rooms, coming back around the core of the house and ending together in the fireplace. The flash of light then _was_ enough to make Remus scrunch his eyes shut, his vision glowing red through his lids, and it was several moments before he opened them again. Though his eyes still swam with the residual images, the runes on the window were gone, and through the window he could see a fire dancing merrily in the fireplace.

Lily, of course, was several steps ahead of him, showing no sign that she had just performed a rather extreme case of warding magic, and through the door before he started moving. When Remus came in, she had some sort of diagnostic spell in a glowing dome over the fire. She cast another, then a third, while Remus waited on, but at last she threw up her hands. “There’s only one way to tell, really,” she said, and before Remus had a chance to protest she’d pulled a handful of powder from somewhere in her cloak and threw it down, stepping into the fire pit as it flashed green and vanishing away with a lost word.

Remus sighed. Typical. Lily was overbearingly cautious when it came to anyone else, but with herself she’d rush into potentially dangerous situations without so much as a second thought. He wasn’t sure if it was confidence or carelessness, but he also couldn’t tell which was worse.

Footsteps on the stairs distracted him from the thought. “Mum!” Holly shouted as her socks came into view. “Are you doing magic again? The calculator shorted out, and—oh, Remy. Hi.”

“Morning, Holly,” he said. The girl was looking around, and seemed disappointed when she realized it was just Remus. Well, he’d expected as much.

“Where’s mum?”

“She’s just—”

The fire flared again, cutting him off. Lily stepped out, triumphant. “It worked perfectly,” she said. “I tried from London and it spat me out in Glasgow.”

“We’re connected to the floo?” Holly said. “We haven’t been connected in _ages._ ”

Lily blinked, seeming surprised to see Holly in the room. “For good reason,” Lily admonished her daughter. “Aren’t you supposed to be finishing your maths?”

Holly scowled. “The calculator went to shit,” she said, borrowing one of Sirius’s favorite phrases. If she hadn’t been scowling, it might have been cute. “Besides, it’s _boring._ And you were doing magic down here,” she added accusingly.

Lily had turned away again, casting another spell on the fireplace. “Use Harry’s calculator,” she said.

“That _was_ Harry’s calculator. Mine broke when you did the wards, remember?”

“Then do it by hand. It’s good for you.”

Holly’s scowl deepened, and she crossed her arms over the chest and stomped her foot. She did not even try to look to Remus for support, the way she would have if it had been Sirius, but he came to her rescue anyways. “Harry wrote this morning,” he said. “There’s letters in the kitchen.”

She took the out, luckily, and stomped away. Lily looked back at him, ignoring the triumphant cry her daughter let out. She must have picked up Lily’s letter first. “I’ve named this place Willow’s End,” she said. “It’s connected to Grimmauld, and the manor, of course, but you’ll need the charm from anywhere else.”

“Willow’s End?” Remus echoed. He swallowed. “Don’t you think that’s a little—connected?”

She shrugged. “It was non-implicative, and surprisingly not yet taken. Besides, it has to relate somehow, or no one will remember it.”

“You’re moving ahead, then.” Remus knew already, but it was hard to imagine the future Lily had planned for her political goals actually coming to fruition. She had spent so long making her plans, countless summer evenings and surely miles of letters between herself and Amelia Bones, it seemed strange that anything was actually moving.

“Of course,” she said. “We’ve already sent out several letters.”

Remus hesitated. “The people you are contacting,” he said. “Are you sure they won’t go to Dumbledore?”

“Oh, we’re counting on it,” she said. “A few are completely out. We want him to know, Remus. The more information we give, the more we can make it certain he knows—“

“I _told_ you he would be in Slytherin!” Holly screeched, rushing back into the room. “Didn’t I, mum? I said he would be.”

“Yes, Holly.” The exhaustion that came with extensive magic was finally beginning to show on Lily’s face, and she took a few steps back, settling onto the couch.

Holly huffed. “Well?” she said. “Don’t you have something more to say?”

“About what?”

“Harry’s going to be _evil!_ ”

She didn’t sound upset about this in the slightest. If anything, she sounded excited. If Remus didn’t have a potential political revolution on his mind, he would have smiled. “Don’t be silly, Holly,” he said instead. “And he’d probably be upset to hear that.”

Holly grinned. “I’ll write him!” she said, turning to run up the stairs to her room.

“Holly.”

The girl froze, turning around slowly. Lily just raised her eyebrows, and Holly sighed, coming back to drop the letter on the coffee table, and left, much slower this time.

“I swear, that girl,” Lily said as they heard the door slam upstairs. “It’s been a day, and she hasn’t stopped pestering me. She needs a hobby, Remus.”

“She’ll be back in school in a week,” Remus said. “And you’ll be back to work. Are you leaving everything to Amelia?”

Lily shook her head. “Some of those we’re contacting are on the continent,” she said. “And Amelia’s as busy as I am. But I’ll be taking fewer hours at the hospital.” She paused. “Your job, it starts tonight?”

“Yes,” Remus said. He was trying to avoid thinking on that, after how his last job had turned out. This one was… different, seeing as he’d be working for a muggle, but he had learned not to get his hopes up, no matter what his friend had said.

“You should tell Sirius about this before you go,” she said, gesturing to the letters. Remus stepped forward to collect his. “He may be an idiot, but he does deserve to know.”

“That Harry is in Slytherin, or that he wasn’t written when we were?”

She didn’t answer, choosing instead to offer Remus a handful of floo powder. “Expect Holly at ten on Saturday.”

“I’ll let Sirius know.”

 

40. 

 

_Breathe. In. Out. There you go._

The manor was connected. She could feel the blood rushing through it, same as she could feel the magic rushing through her veins. Or was it…

The dust had settled. A thin layer had formed over her skin, turning her grey and blending her with the walls. Maybe this was what it was like to be a ghost, to see the world and not be a part of it, to be bound to it in blood—magic, in magic. The grease marks had burnt off the walls, leaving the walls marked with runes carved out of the filth, bright where the dust had been cleared away.

Lily sat up, leaning against the wall she’d tried to hold herself up with before, where a section of navy blue paint had been revealed when her body had scraped it away. The room was empty of any furniture, unlike the others. She expected it had been the floo parlor before, a room to welcome guests into the manor, an entry point that one was not to linger in. She’d been the last in it, when she’d gone through the mansion, sealing off the rooms they would not be using as a home. They only used the northern wing, but house magic did not work like that. Every room on the first floor had to be marked and warded for her spell to work, or the whole house would be in danger. The markings alone had taken eight hours. And then she had cast the spell, and come inside. That had been—just after dinner time, she thought, though she hadn’t stopped. And then she had fallen, and now she was…

It took ten minutes, at least, for her vision to stop swimming, and when she stood the vertigo intensified, but she managed to stagger to the fireplace. That was where she had been headed before.

Why? Fires were dangerous. They brought destruction and bad news and—

_Breathe._

She breathed.

Crouching down, she found the fire, a tiny flame for such a large fire pit. That was better. The size of the flame did not decrease the magical potency, but it was like a smaller window: easier to hide what was on the other side.

She settled back on her heels. She should go through. She was supposed to go—to Grimmauld Place. To collect Holly and floo to Maisons Fantôme, and to drive all the way here. She needed to—the world had started moving again, and though she had been adrift she had to come back again.

To do that, she had to step into the fire. Who would step into a fire? It went against every bit of sense, stepping into fire. Surely she would catch burn, and—

_Breathe._

Instead, she straightened up again, and shuffled back to the used part of the manor. She could feel the wards she had set to keep them separate shifting as she passed through the previously unused door. It would keep out the creatures that had taken up residence in the untouched corners, festering on the building’s history as home to dark arts practitioners. Hopefully, it would also keep out the handful of humans she worried would try to break through, but if they got so far as to combat the ward, she would have bigger things to worry about.

She stumbled down the hall that extended back from the foyer, which in the dark was easy enough to navigate: the door to her room was at the end. She did not stare into the picture on the wall, tempting as it was to watch waves against the cliffs in the moonlight and lose sight of herself once again, and she managed not to trip on the corner of her bed or collide with her dresser as she made her way across to the washroom. The lights, when she switched them on, were bright enough to blind her, so she squeezed her eyes shut and groped blindly for the faucet, and when the water came streaming out cold, ducked to splash it up onto her face.

It was clear the sink would not be enough to get her clear of dust, but the cold had startled her into enough energy to realize she wouldn’t be able to stay awake through a whole shower. She would floo to Grimmauld Place, and spend the night there, if she couldn’t make it all the way. After all, Holly wouldn’t mind.

Holly. 

Lily sighed.

She turned off the water and the lights and felt around in the dark, shucking her dusty clothing for the first robes she grabbed from the closet, and slowly made her way back to the room where the floo was burning. She’d left a little pot of floo powder on the mantle and took a handful of it now, throwing it down and stepping into the floo without hesitating long enough to be caught thinking again. For a moment, she drifted, the magic not knowing where to take her, drifting by fireplaces where families were gathered in living rooms, catching snippets of conversations in French, German—

“Grimmauld Place,” she whispered, and it spun her round and around, and spat her out in London.

Remus and Sirius were sitting at the kitchen table, and started at her arrival. One jumped up faster than the other, catching her by the shoulder and guiding her to the nearest chair while the other fixed a mug of tea in her hands.

“Holly is asleep,” Remus said. She looked up and found him studying her. “You should be, too.”

“Possibly,” she admitted. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“It’s two in the morning. The theatre has been closed for several hours.”

She nodded, bringing the mug up and taking a sip of the tea. It was regular tea, no potions or alcohol, as Sirius had somehow once thought she wouldn’t notice. Or maybe there was something there—it was tasteless, and she knew that tea was supposed to taste like something but she couldn’t remember what.

“Seems late for tea,” she said.

“It’s two in the morning,” Sirius repeated. “Moony was concerned.”

“ _I_ was concerned?” Remus echoed. “Even Holly was more composed than you, you know.”

“Holly.” That was why she was here, wasn’t it? Something about her daughter, on fire... “Where is she?”

“Asleep,” Remus repeated, while Sirius said, “Upstairs.”

Nodding, Lily took another sip of tea. Maybe there was something in there. She felt the two wizards pushing her down into the chair, but she hadn’t recalled trying to stand up. She blinked, trying to focus on their faces, but they were blurring together.

“I’m alright, you know,” she said. “Still alive. I think. Right?”

“You barely look it,” said Remus. “One of us should have gone to France with you. Or Amelia. Or one of the people you’re trying to get in contact with. You look like death on two legs.”

Something about that struck her as hilarious, but she wasn’t sure if she was laughing or not. “Four legs,” she said. “I’m sitting in a chair.”

Sirius sighed, and suddenly the world turned sideways. She felt her head flopping about, useless as a rag doll, as he carried her up the stairs.

“Hey, Sirius,” she said.

“What?”

“I think I saw James today.”

He froze mid-step. “Don’t say things like that, Lily.”

“I did!” She insisted. She remembered, now, where she had been when she slipped: out in the ocean, as she had been before. It had been as close to perfect emptiness and completeness as she could get. But there had been something missing—“Harry,” she said. “He said I should stop worrying about Harry so much. I told him he was an idiot.”

“You should,” Sirius said. He’d started walking again. “You need to take care of yourself, Lily. You should—Merlin, you don’t know what you look like right now. It’s a good thing Holly is asleep. She shouldn’t have to see her mother like this.”

“He wanted to know about Holly,” she went on. “Said he didn’t get a chance…”

Sirius set her down—in bed, she presumed. They must have gone through the door. Remus was there, too, tucking her in. “What did you tell him?” Remus asked softly.

“I don’t…” she tried to blink open her eyes. “She and Harry… Harry and…”

What had she said? What was Holly? What had she said?

 

41. 

 

Holly was bored.

School would not start until Thursday, unfortunately, and it was only Tuesday morning. She had already wandered through every room in the mansion twice, gotten kicked out of her mother's study by the warding spell, and tried to open up some of the rooms she knew she was not allowed in. That had been interesting, though not incredibly productive. The spell her mother had cast over the doors had made her hand sting, like the trick candy Sirius had found at the muggle joke shop they'd gone to when she'd stayed with them.

She had wanted to stay in London for another day, but her mother had insisted they go home. It didn't make any sense. They were connected by floo now, and her mother had been asleep all morning. Holly had tried tiptoeing around her room, free from her mother's prying eyes, but she'd been sleep talking. Harry sometimes talked in his sleep, too. Holly had learned to smother her ears underneath a pillow, rather than give herself nightmares listening to what he said. He claimed he never remembered, but she knew he was a liar. He was her big brother, but he was also a Slytherin, and everyone had to believe her about that now.

She missed him. She didn't like the manor on her own. It was large and drafty and probably there was loads of dark magic behind all the locked doors. Holly didn't know what made anything 'dark' or not, but she'd spent enough time at Grimmauld Place to know that anywhere that belonged to Siri's family was probably filled with dangerous things like that. Harry had always kept her far enough away from any dangerous things like that. He'd put snakes in some stupid bully's desk for her, big idiot that he was.

But now he was gone.

Well, she wasn't worried, really, but she was bored. There was only so much she could do without him.

She sat on the bottom step of the main stairs, considering her options. There were plenty of things to do, she knew. Harry would have found something. He would have pulled out a book, or told her a story, or gone running around outside. It was raining out, and her mum had specifically told her not to go outside without asking.

She thought about it harder.

Alas, the mind of a nine-year-old, bored out of their wits, is a terrible thing. Holly thought of a brilliant plan. She was going to break the cardinal rule of the house, all on her own, and Harry wasn't there to hold her back on tell on her about it, and her mum was asleep, so she'd never know. If she was going to be left all alone, she was going to take advantage of it. She stood up, and went around the stairs, opening the door behind them ever so quietly, so she wouldn't wake her mother in the next room.

And then, on tip toes, she crept into her mother's potions lab.

She had been there before, of course, but only a handful of times, and it was only when her mother needed something for a potion--hair, usually, but sometimes blood. She didn't know who would drink a potion brewed with blood, but her mum had never tried to teach her about potions the way she'd tried to teach Harry, and Harry, when he'd asked this summer, had rattled off some textbook answer about how magically potent blood was. She thought that was stupid: humans were filled with blood, and you didn't hear about potions masters running around trying to steal it from everyone. It wasn’t exactly hard to find.

She was actually surprised to have made it so far into the lab. For whatever reason, the spells that had kept her out of the locked rooms didn’t seem to have been applied to the lab. Then again, from what she could tell her mum hadn’t set up the lab since their return from England. Only one of the burners was on. Holly looked around until she found a stool, brought it over to the black cauldron all by itself in the corner, and climbed up to peer inside. To her disappointment, the liquid inside was completely clear. It could have been water, but she could see from the way the bubbles slowly grew and popped it was thicker, and had a mirror-like sheen.

Unfortunately, there was nothing inherently interesting about that. She climbed down and returned the stool as quietly she could, pausing to listen upstairs, but there was no sound of her mum getting up. Sometimes mum was like that. Usually Harry was there, and if she didn’t get up the whole day, he would make them sandwiches and bring some to her on a tray, and they’d just go on as ever, letting her get her sleep.

The cupboards proved equally disinteresting. Harry probably would been able to tell her about all the different vials of powders and liquids were for. She’d tried looking through his potions book once, but even though it was illustrated the text itself had been mostly directions like _stir counter-clockwise three times_ , which she couldn’t understand how anyone would find interesting. Then Harry had laughed when she had asked, and never really properly explained anything. She didn’t like when he laughed at her, so she’d given up trying to read his texts after that. Besides, she’d always known she was better at learning by doing than reading. If mum would let her come down into the lab and try brewing, like she’d let Harry, maybe she’d find it interesting too. Maybe. If it weren’t all stirring.

The other cupboards were mostly storage for vials, cauldrons, weird sticks, cutting boards, knives, and odd tools that she had at least enough sense to not poke at. The sense of adventure had faded somewhat now that she was looking around and finding nothing exciting. Harry had always complained that mostly what he did was cleaning and not much fun at all, but it was _magic._ Harry’s magic had always been exciting. She’d never done much anything interesting herself. Once, she’d gotten impatient waiting on her mother to heat up milk for cocoa, and the whole potful had suddenly gone hot enough to burn all at once, but she’d never been certain if that was magic or her mum’s negligence to the pot. But Harry always made things exciting—talking to snakes aside, he’d always entertained her by making little candle fires dance around, and he’d knocked the ugly house elf heads off the wall at Grimmauld Place, and the whole building had shaken when he’d shouted at mum. But the potions lab was much more like Holly’s magic: Harry said there was a lot to it, and she believed him, but couldn’t see it for herself.

She was proud of herself for that comparison, and, her interests reinvigorated, she climbed back up on the stool, this time looking down on her mother’s work table. She didn’t dare turn the pages of any of the notebooks, and studied her mum’s tall, slanted cursive more for the aesthetics than trying to understand anything. She knew she couldn’t be able to; even when her mum was talking about potions she started to tune her voice out. But her mum’s handwriting was beautiful, if illegible, and she’d picked up on that weird magical habit of letting her notes turn about on the page like a maze from her puzzles book.

As she was leaning in close to study the writing, she noticed a thicker piece of paper sticking out from under one of the notebooks. She lifted the book, but there were no markings on it. If it was another letter from Harry, she wanted to see it. She’d written him back, but then they’d come back to France, and she’d only get mail back if her mum flooed Siri and Rem. But she didn’t know when her mum had actually sent her letter—it could have been last Monday, when she’d given it back, or she might not even have sent it at all. Holly hoped she did. She wanted a letter from Harry, more than anything: she wanted to hear all about Hogwarts, and she wanted her brother to tell her he missed her the way she missed him.

So, after another pause to listen for her mother’s door, Holly tugged the envelope out from under the notebook, and settled down on the stool to free the thick stack of parchments.

A glance at the handwriting told her what she needed to know: it wasn’t from Harry.

She was disappointed, but it did mean her mum hadn’t kept any letters from her, which was nice to know. And once she started scrutinizing the cramped, spiky writing, she forgot about it altogether. The letter did not make any sense. Perhaps the strangest part was that at least the first page was missing. It was probably stuck in one of the notebooks, but Holly didn’t want to push her luck rummaging around. Instead she did her best to interpret what she did have:

 

 

 

_afraid I’ve had no reason to keep up with the development of the potion. If I am to be of any use to you, I will need your materials. Copies, at least, of your notes. A list of texts worth considering._

_And if you are imagining that I do nothing here but sit around fiddling with my wand, I can assure you that’s not the case. I am a Potions Master, yes, but I am also slave to time. There is no time left in my day to take an extra breath, and if you want me brewing and keeping an open eye, it will be a wonder if I don’t fall asleep in a potion. There are far too many components in a human head for that to be a useful test. It could be a cure to lycanthropy or the only poison to defeat Mad-Eye Moody’s dumb luck and bulletproof gut, but we would never know for certain._

_I doubt there is need for me to act as your watchdog. What spells did you use? It is a wonder I’ve been able to keep my mind on the boy at all. He could show up in the Great Hall naked and only a handful would even notice. His direct peers, perhaps. (Draco Malfoy seems to find his existence worth fixating on, though he acts as pompous as you would expect, for all my best efforts over the years. I’ve heard them called cousins, which is a rather disturbing thought. No more ridiculous than the idea that R. had a son, I suppose.) So long as the old man does not notice the magic behind whatever spells you’ve used, however, he should not care enough to notice the effects. I had only begun to, and it was only in the eyes. Somehow grey doesn’t fit that face._

_But I will try, of course. If he’s anything like his father or the monster he’s been raised with—you know which one I mean—I doubt I will get any sleep at all, but he is in Slytherin, so perhaps there is enough of a difference between them to spare me. The Headmaster’s usual flobber-brained planning aside, Hogwarts has become much safer in the last ten years. There’s only been one death, and only a handful of times the Aurors have been called. Compared to our school years, it’s been a fairy tale. Four out of the five last DADA professors resigned peacefully._

_To that: do you recall our sixth year Professor, Kingsley Shacklebolt? Ministry had him placed to recruit for the Auror department, or perhaps because no one else would take the job. He’s been working with the Headmaster to increase security at the school recently. I wonder if that’s all he’s been here for. I was shown something the other day: a sprig of willow. Dumbledore had been carrying it with him. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s being investigated already. As such, direct post to Cokesworth. There are far fewer noses to find their ways into books there, and nothing left but muggles._

_But unless you send me the perfected recipe back from future, I won’t claim that anything you send will make any difference. I will do my best, but as I said before, there is a scientific process you are asking me to ignore. Magic this may be, but nothing is instantaneous._

_Yours,_

_The Indomitable Ego_

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Well, it's been a while. Unfortunately, university does that to people. As does working. As does encountering a chapter that you have to write three times, set aside for two months, and only come back to in order to avoid your initial NaNoWriMo story.  
> Yeah, it's that sort of year.  
> Luckily, I have a beta who is also my flatmate, and does things like make sure I use the apostrophe in "it's", as well as giving some beautiful commentary like "learn to parent, asshole", and also encourages me to write when I'm moping around doing nothing instead.  
> As I am avoiding my actual NaNo story, and attempting to get at least halfway this year (I am about 10k behind and schoolwork isn't going to lighten up a bit the rest of the month), you'll probably get another chapter some time in the next few weeks. Hopefully; the next chapter is set to be pretty long, and we've all seen how long a shorter-length one takes me now.
> 
> Additional snarky commentary from creation: The first page of Severus' letter could not be posted, due to copyright infringement on Adele's "Hello."


	13. What is Written on the Heart, Part V

_Dear Jamie,_

_You can't say I wasn't serious! I did too think you would be in Slytherin. I said so, and mum and Siri both know I did, so there!_

_But whatever. You're stupid anyways. And you're mean, because you left me here in France all by myself and Mum did something and has been really boring the last few days and there's nothing to do here. I tried reading one of your Redwall books, but I don't get it. Why is a cat talking to a mouse instead of eating it? Why is a cat talking at all? Unless they're all animagus. But that doesn't make sense either. Padfoot can't talk as an animagus. And it's a muggle book anyways._

_I hope you're taking care of Pudge. I still can't believe you took him. He'd much rather be here with me. I have nothing to do. It's so BORING!_

_Since you FINALLY wrote, if you don't tell mum I'll tell you a secret, but you owe me a secret too. Here goes: I snuck into her lab. It was really boring, actually. I think she's not started making anything since we got back. There was only one potion, and it looked like really shiny water._

_Don't tell me that of course it was shiny! I'm not stupid. I mean it was kind of like metally water or something. Like a mirror had been turned into liquid. Which sounds a lot more cool than it was, because it was quite boring, really._

_But I also found something in there. Hopefully mum doesn't read this, but maybe I'd deserve it, because what I found was a letter, and I read it. I think it was from someone at Hogwarts, but they signed something weird. The Indominosomething Ego. There was a lot of stuff about being a Potions Master (which sounds really BORING), and a lot of questions about spells. And a page was missing, too, and there was a lot of words I didn't know. Actually, I didn't understand most of it. There was something about falling asleep in a potion, but I didn't get what that meant._

_But they did write that some boy could show up in the great hall naked and no one would notice! That’s really gross, and I think it meant you! Please don’t try it though. It would be really ~~emb~~ weird for me to have to go to school as the sister of the boy who went to breakfast naked._

_But I think it said something about watching you. It said "Watchdog", but I don't think it was Padfoot, because he's not at Hogwarts, and he hates potions anyways, which makes sense because I was in the lab and it was really boring. I don't get why you and mum spent so much time down there._

_Anyways, I thought the letter was kind of weird. I only read it because I thought it was from you! I read the letter you sent Remy, but you didn't send me one right away, and you PROMISED. And you only gave me a really short one this time. So you had better write back to this one and tell me all about how awful Slytherin is, or I'm going to be really angry. And don’t be like mum and Siri and pretend there’s nothing wrong with Slytherin, because we both know it’s awful, which is why you’re there because you LEFT ME HERE ALONE._

_I have to start school again tomorrow, which normally I would HATE, but I'm so bored here that it's okay this year. That's how bored I am!_

_Love,_

_Holly_

 

 

42.

 

By the time Tuesday morning came, Jamie was feeling better about his family. He had received back letters from Remus and his mother on Saturday. Remus's was encouraging, and maybe a bit too insistent that he didn't have to worry about what Sirius would think. His mother's said next to nothing, but he hadn't really given her much to work with, to be fair. They’d both encouraged him to write Sirius, so he had, and had sent one to his sister as well. Sirius had responded by Sunday; Holly by Monday.

Sirius had insisted there was nothing wrong with Jamie being in Slytherin. Holly had insisted there was everything wrong with being a Slytherin. The combination of what Remus had told him to expect and what he had known to expect had been comforting, to say the least.

As for Jamie, he still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the whole Slytherin thing. He wasn’t about to be disowned or pulled out of school, but that meant he actually had to face having been sorted to the green and silver. His conclusion so far, though it was only the second week, was that he wasn't sure he fit in at all. Draco would include him in things, but it was always with the note of _He's my cousin, and Father says we must make sure he is comfortable here in the UK, after all_. Jamie thought it was strange Draco's father would have said anything about him at all, but Draco got letters nearly every other day, so he must have been writing about every little thing that happened.

Despite his misgivings, he had to admit that Slytherin was a better fit than Gryffindor, at least. They had Potions and Transfiguration with the Gryffindors, and they were all pretty strange. There was Hermione Granger, who everyone dreaded would raise her hand. Neville Longbottom was extraordinarily clumsy, and Draco had taken to calling him a squib, since none of them had seen him do any magic. Ron Weasley had decided that Draco was the worst person in the world, but while he went out of his way to try to insult the Slytherin, whenever Draco struck back he'd always turn as red as his hair and all his insults would turn into indecipherable spluttering. It wasn't that Draco's insults were any better (they mostly relied on reminding Weasley of how poor his family was, or how many siblings he had, neither of which were particularly insulting) but he was much more confident when he delivered them.

Seamus Finnegan had not only blown up his cauldron twice in the first week (incidents that for some reason Professor Snape did not seem incredibly worried about, as though he had already come to expect it) but had also managed to blow up the match he had tried to turn into a needle. That could have been just as dangerous as a potions explosion, so Jamie was more bothered by how Professor McGonagall was just as unconcerned as Professor Snape. Snape was the head of Slytherin, and known to not care for Gryffindors, but he not only didn't care, he had hardly paid attention. McGonagall was the same. Jamie couldn't wrap his mind around it—his mother had always insisted that safety come before everything else when it came to practicing magic, and the professors had touted the same. But for some reason, neither McGonagall nor Snape paid any attention to Finnegan.

Luckily, Tuesday mornings were Herbology, and while that was with all four houses (and so Finnegan) there wasn't anything too explosive. They came away without being covered in soot or splinters, though they had been doing a demonstration on different ways to fill pots with soil, and even though they had been wearing the greenhouse overcloaks and gardening gloves Jamie came away feeling like he was covered in dirt. He raced back to the dormitories and showered before the others could return, and at eleven was one of the first to lunch, where he brought out his potions book to look over the materials they were supposed to be starting on.

Tracey Davis showed up not a minute after he started reading and disrupted that plan. “ _Jeannot_ ,” she said emphatically. “You have _got_ to help me.”

He looked up at her in confusion. He’d not really spoken to her, as all her really knew was that she was a half-blood—Draco made it a point that everyone knew everyone else’s blood status, as though it meant something. Jamie had decided it best to keep his muggle books locked in his trunk after that. He wasn’t ashamed of them, he just didn’t think it was worth it to get in an argument with the others over each.

“What is it?” Jamie asked.

“Theo’s gone to the infirmary,” she said. “He’s had some sort of allergic reaction, thanks to herbology, so I don’t have a partner for potions. And you know what that means.”

“We don’t have set partners, you know,” he said.

Tracey rolled her eyes. “Don’t be daft. Everyone’s partnered up and sticking to it so they won’t get stuck with Granger.”

“Then why were Millicent and I working with her last week?”

“Well it’s not so bad when you’re with someone else.” He didn’t think Tracey really believed that, but she went on anyways. “So you have got to partner up with me.”

“No offense,” said Jamie. “But I think this is the first time we’ve talked.”

She stuck her hand out. “Hi, I’m Tracey. Now we are acquainted, and now we are potions partners, right?”

Jamie blinked. “That… doesn’t actually solve anything. If I partner with you Millicent will be left out.”

Tracey flung herself into the seat next to him. “Oh, come on, Millicent doesn’t like anyone, so it’s not like it’s worse for her to pair off with Granger.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“I’m a _Slytherin_ , Jeannot. I’m not nice.”

He sighed. He didn’t want to say no—not when she was clearly so opposed to being placed with Granger, but he didn’t want to push aside Millicent either, and he didn’t want to get stuck with Granger.

He thought he was saved when the other first year girls came to join them at the table. It was only eleven, a bit early to be eating lunch, Jamie thought, but they had Potions and Defense and then three hours of study hall after that, so they did not have much of a choice in the matter. Pansy and Daphne settled a few seats down, but Millicent, awkwardly enough, settled directly across from Jamie.

Unfortunately, Davis did not drop the matter. "Millie doesn't mind, right Millie?" she asked as soon as the other girl took her seat.

"Don't call me Millie," the girl growled. Jamie knew that tone. Since he'd made enemies with the bullies in his class back in primary school, he'd had it directed at him often enough, and had to learn to use it himself. It was the _Back Off or I'll Sock You_ tone, which usually wasn't very indicative of any actual action, as it was usually used in places like the Great Hall, where you couldn't actually punch anyone and get away with it. Davis either didn't hear the warning or knew Millicent wouldn't follow through in front of all the teachers, because she carried on.

"See? She didn't say she did."

"She didn't say she didn't, either," Jamie pointed out.

"Whatever it is, no," Millicent said. She had taken some shepherd's pie, and seemed more concerned with eating that than actually paying attention to Davis's pestering, but the Tone hadn't gone away.

"You don't even know what the question is!"

"The question was whether I mind or not. You don't want to say what it is I am supposed to be judging, and you want me to say I don't mind. Meaning, I probably would."

It was an astute summary. "She wants me to pair up with her for potions," Jamie explained. Davis glared, but he wasn't going to hold back the information from Millicent when she could take away the trouble of his having to make up his own mind about what to do. "Theo's gone to infirmary."

"You're my partner," Millicent said firmly. "Don't try to push Granger off onto me, Davis. She's almost as intolerable as you are."

"Oh come on Millie—"

"'lo, Jeannot," said Greg, sitting down beside him. Jamie turned away, grateful for the distraction. Greg wasn't the best at conversation, but he was, overall, a mild-mannered bloke, who mostly went along with whatever Draco said or Vince did. And he was definitively not involved in Tracey' and Millicent's growing argument: Greg was paired with Vince, and it seemed almost ridiculous to imagine them parted.

"Hello," said Jamie. "Could you pass the chicken?"

Vince reached the other side of the table a moment later, and then Draco and Pansy showed up, arguing about whether the Ministry balls were even worth going to. Pansy argued they weren't, in the same breath that she praised the Malfoy family events, while Draco was off about _My Father_ and some no doubt ridiculously extravagant donations they had made to the cause. "There's no reason to spare expenses for a good party, after all."

"Well of course not," said Pansy. "Daddy's donated plenty in his time. But Mummy always says we shan't ever go to a ministry party. They're so... plebian."

Jamie had only been to one large party, and he had been too young to judge it for the expenses. He was a bit concerned by the fact that the extremely wealthy Malfoy and Parkinson families would waste their donations on parties, especially parties they would not even attend, when there were probably things worth solving. He couldn't think of any, but Lily probably could, so he was certain there were some. Besides, Pansy's elitism was ridiculous. Here she was, sitting at the shared house table at Hogwarts, using the word plebian, which she had probably picked up from one of Draco's more pompous rants.

Not that Jamie's family didn't have money. They did. He'd been to the Potter vault at Gringotts with his mother, when they had gone to Diagon Alley that summer, and that had been a real eye-opener. Of course they lived in the manor, but they barely used any of it, and the rest was a wreck, and it was a Black manor besides. Before they'd lived there, they'd lived in an apartment in Leon, which had neither been luxurious nor especially well-kept.

He didn't think Lily was spending their money on parties, either. He couldn't imagine what exactly anyone would spend that much money on. Potions ingredients, perhaps, and books. Brooms, of course, but Sirius had always been the one with brooms, not Jamie's family.

But as Draco and Pansy sat down, he was once again saved from an awkward conversation by Millicent. She stood quite abruptly, grabbing Jamie by the arm and pulling him up out of his seat with more strength than he thought any eleven-year-old should have, and snapped at Tracey, "You're a _stupid_ little girl, and deserve to deal with her yourself.”

She pulled him along out of the hall, ignoring the jeers of a gaggle of Gryffindor upperclassmen as they went rushing by. Jamie went along with it, at least until they reached the stairs down to the dungeons. Then he planted his feet, grabbed the bannister, and pulled back as hard as he could.

It didn't break her grip, but Millicent did pause and turn back. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"You're hurting my arm," he said simply. "And where are we going, anyways? Potions isn't for another twenty-five minutes, at least."

She flushed and snatched her hand back. "Anywhere but the Great Hall," she hissed, but then she turned her face to away and peered at him from the corner of her eyes. "I.... didn't think you'd come."

"You could have asked," he pointed out. Millicent looked away entirely, saying nothing. Jamie sighed, re-adjusting his bag. "What did she say to you, anyways?"

Millicent said something under her breath. She reminded Jamie a bit of Sirius, so he just waited, the way he'd seen Lily do with his uncle. Eventually, she shuffled her feet and cleared her throat. "She called me a muggle-lover."

Jamie blinked. He didn't know Millicent very well, and unlike Draco she didn't exactly go out of her way to proclaim her opinions to the world, if she had any.

"She didn't use that word," she clarified.

"Isn't Tracey a half-blood?" Jamie knew the slur she must have used, from his mother's lessons. But he couldn't ever imagine using it himself, not after having grown up among muggles himself. It would be hypocritical, and he did not like hypocrites. Besides, Lily Potter was a muggleborn, probably the best known muggleborn in the magical world, and everyone always said she was a powerful witch. He'd like to see Tracey call her a _mudblood_.

"Does it matter?" Millicent snapped. Her face lit up pink again. "I don't like Granger, and Tracey can go—go stuff herself if she thinks I'm going to pair up with Granger out of some niceness."

"No, really," Jamie said. He got her point—he hadn't exactly been leaping out of his seat to pair with Granger, no matter how little he felt a care for blood status—but now that he thought of it, he was confused. "Isn't Tracey a half-blood? What is she playing at?"

Millicent gave him a cool look. "Just because you are oblivious doesn't mean the rest of us are," she said. "You have it easy. You don't know where your mother came from. You're a half-blood, but you're from the continent, and Draco likes you well enough, so no-one's going to give you much trouble. The rest of us aren't exactly going to flaunt it."

"You're a half-blood too?" he asked. Millicent's look turned into a scowl.

"Just—ugh," she said. "I don't want to deal with you, too."

She turned and started down the stairs again.

"I don't mean it as an insult!" he insisted. "I mean, I really don't care—"

“Jeannot,” she said. “Stuff it.”

Millicent, it seemed, really was not in the mood to hear Jamie speak, and though they went down to the dungeons early and sat in the nook she had pointed out before, she did not say anything more. He pulled his potions text back out of his bag, glad he had snagged both when she’d grabbed him, reading over the passage they would surely be quizzed on that day, and when Daphne and Pansy showed up, Millicent pulled him along out of the nook before their hiding place would be noticed. The others came down shortly, lining up, but Draco quickly got in some minor argument with Weasley and Finnegan, so there was no comment made on the pair's abrupt departure from the hall.

Jamie did notice, however, how easily Millicent shrunk back into the shadows. Though she was shooting a nasty glare Tracey's way, no one but Jamie seemed to pay any attention to her at all, even despite the earlier spectacle.

But then the second years came rushing out of the classroom across the hall, nearly climbing one over the other to get out of the lab first, and Jamie, too, lost track of her.

Professor Snape, it seemed, was in a terribly foul mood. Luckily, he seemed to have expended all of his patience for the day on the second years, and kept his lecture short, firing most of his questions off at the Gryffindors surrounding Granger. Some of them Jamie knew weren't in the text at all--he'd read it twice, after all, and could remember most of what it said. But when Thomas failed to identify mugwort based on only a trick-clue and Snape assigned detention (with Filch, no less) it became clear Snape hardly cared at all whether or not they'd done the reading. He just wanted someone to attack.

Jamie considered this as they were set developing a standard potion base. Millicent did not want to talk to him, and Granger had ended up paired with Tracey after all, so he had plenty of free time to think. He wondered on Holly's letter, which had revealed a good deal more than his sister had picked up on, surely. If Professor Snape was in correspondence with his mother, and his mother had put the Professor on the task of watching out for Jamie, he had to be sure that no one else was watching him at all. He needed to learn how to pull Millicent's vanishing act, and he needed to learn fast, if Snape were watching. The man always seemed to be aware of everything that went on in his classroom, so if anyone were to pay too much attention to Jamie, he would be the first to know.

But then again, Jamie wasn't so sure Snape was paying attention to him at all. In fact, since he had handed over his mother's letter, it was as though Jamie had ceased to exist. He hadn't been called on for any questions, even though Snape seemed to know exactly who he could call on to earn Slytherin points, and now that they were working, though he towered over Longbottom' and Brown's cauldron with enough anger in his face to make the two Gryffindors shake, he hadn't even given Jamie' and Millicent's work station a cursory glance.

He severely doubted that Holly had reported the letter she had found accurately. He couldn’t imagine why a professor, let alone Snape, would say someone could show up in the Great Hall naked; even thinking about it made him want to laugh. He could, however, imagine Snape falling asleep in a potion; under the glares and pointed words he looked exhausted. Not just tired, but exhausted the way Lily was sometimes exhausted, when she came home from work after a big surgery or had performed a bunch of spells. The way she was before she'd lock herself up in her room for half a weekend, or when he'd come downstairs in the middle of the night and find her sitting on the sofa, staring off into space. Snape didn't seem like the sort to stare off into space, but since the quarter had started he had only grown more and more tired, and it was only the second week.

He did not mind so much that the professor was ignoring him while he was in this mood, but Jamie had hoped that he would be able to impress the man by proving himself adept at potions. If he did, maybe Snape would open up a bit, and if he opened up, then maybe, just maybe, Jamie might be able to ask him about what Lily was like when she was younger, and about what he'd done to earn her scorn. Besides, he was almost certain that his mother had told the professor exactly who he was. And it would be nice to have someone who knew, he thought, even if it were Snape.

So as they finished the base, leaving it to simmer until they got back to it on Thursday, he thought of a handful of questions about the text and the base they had made. Pointless questions, perhaps, since he already knew the answers to them, but they were only intended to open up a conversation.

All hope of that was swept aside when, on the mark of the hour, the Professor swept out of the room without a glance back, barking at them all to leave. They all froze, looked between each other, and shrugged. At least the Professor wasn't holding them late, and they could get to defense in time.

Unfortunately for Jamie, what waited in Defense was another headache. He wondered how bad it would get before he had to go to the hospital wing. He tried to distract himself in passing notes with Daphne. It was easy enough to get conversation going: what could have ticked off the professor this time?

 

 

*

_S,_

_In your sitting room you will find a collection of necessary research materials. They are but magical copies, so will not last for your permanent collection, although from the state of Spinner's End it seems your permanent collection is nothing more than a junk heap anyhow. How are you supposed to find what you need in there? How long before the doxies destroy all those books for their nests? It is absolutely disgusting._

_Your information regarding Dumbledore is useful, but unnecessary. Do not try to ingratiate yourself to me like this. If I needed some sort of spy in Hogwarts, I would have one, and the last person I would choose for that role is you. Although perhaps it would be appropriate. They say that spies have no honor. Tell me, was it easy to start feeding Dumbledore information about your comrades? As easy as it was to follow Voldemort's orders and attack those you went to school with, I suppose._

_Do you care for a single person outside of yourself? You insist that you do, but all the same, I do not see it. Your insufferable cheek has been noted, and I, at least, do not take my disagreement with your glibness lightly. There are lives at stake. Mine, my sons, and thousands of those across the world who would benefit from your assistance were you to actually apply your mind to this potion. I am, frankly, disgusted with your attempts at humor. Of all people, I wouldn't expect to have to remind you of the need for a professional approach here._

_Well, perhaps I expect too much of you. There is no reason I should, and yet still I give you more credit than you deserve, time and time again. Why is that, I wonder?_

_In the matter of the boy, I do not appreciate your speculation. Turn your mind elsewhere. There are eyes that can look too deep in that castle, and it is better to not think on a matter at all than to try to hide it under some veneer. Stay away from him. If Malfoy implies any serious trouble for him, write me at once._

_On other matters, don't waste the ink. Already I am sick of having to exhaust my scarce spare time dealing with this correspondence. Reply next when you have actually made progress. The time constraints are obvious, I should think._

_L.P._

 

 

43.

 

Severus started, realizing he'd slipped into a doze. He glanced down at the potion beneath him, but the stirring rod in his hand was just over the surface. It was still dripping.

He set it aside, resisting the urge to reach up and rub at his eyes. It wouldn't help. The only thing that would really make him feel less like a statue at this point was a good dose of sleep, but there wasn't any time.

Curse the damn wolf! If it had been he who had died all those years ago, instead of Potter, he wouldn't have to deal with any of this. Lily wouldn't be... whatever it was she had become since Potter's death, and he wouldn't be stuck trying to figure out how to modify a potion that was fated to fail from the start.

It wasn’t intended to ‘cure’ a werewolf, after all. There was no cure until you could separate the man from the beast and if he were trying to kill Lupin, there were easier ways. He could just up the aconite to fatal levels. If Lily gave it to him, the wolf would probably take the poison, no questions asked. They were both that sort of Gryffindor, after all: foolishly trusting, always expecting the best of each other.

…but.

He sighed. Lily would probably storm Hogwarts to curse him herself, if she knew he were so much as entertaining the thought of poisoning her dear pitiable pet werewolf. Merlin knew she had delved into some sort of dark arts, with all the spells she'd used to change her son.

The bones in Severus’s neck cracked as he craned his head from side to side, and he rolled his shoulders, trying to chase away the fatigue that he carried on them. It was already Thursday, so the week was half over, but he had only come along with the flow of time dragged by the ankles. He’d gotten three hours of sleep that morning, waking to find himself surrounded by notes fanned out on the floor of his living quarters, the couch pushed back out of the way, blocking the hall to the bedroom. He had been relieved to find it was Thursday still, that he hadn’t slept through his classes, as much as he wanted to. Lily had sent him ten journals worth of notes, some neat pages of potioneers’ parchment bound with muggle binder clips, others clearly torn from notebooks, filled with the writers’ ramblings. There were copies of articles from books and magazines, the margins packed with the somehow perfectly straight lines of Lily’s tall cursive, and he’d done his best not to linger on the bits that still sounded like her. _Had the bastard even met a werewolf? He describes them like the bogey monster. It’s no wonder he never completed the potion, if he couldn’t even think of them as humans._

Technically, Severus wanted to argue, they weren’t humans, but that wasn’t the point. People. They were people, that’s what she wanted to say. He would argue—but he had it on good authority that he was a terrible person, so perhaps he could be the judge. If students were to be believed, he was the worst person in the world, but they had never met the Dark Lord.

Lily had.

Severus turned and pinched the bridge of his nose, hurrying out of his lab before he could fall down that rabbit hole. The hour break he had for lunch was nearly gone, and he hadn’t had a bite to eat, so he made his way into his office and downed the cup of tea the house elves had left out for him before digging in his drawer for a vial of nutrient potion and a pepperup. They left a foul taste in his mouth, but if he couldn’t get sleep he would at least be sure to keep his body fueled in other ways.

A handful of first years were already waiting outside the lab. He let them in behind him, doing his best to ignore their curiosity. First year Slytherins, especially first year Slytherins only in their second week, lacked the tact the later years developed, and stared at his no doubt sallow countenance unabashedly.

There was one stare that seemed to follow him particularly insistently, one which he was keen to avoid. Even as he began the lecture, and the other students scrambled to scribble down everything he said, Jeannot was watching him instead, grey eyes wide without the glasses Severus knew he needed. He couldn’t risk thinking of the boy as _Potter_ , even though he was certain now that that was who he was. The wrong thought at the wrong time could prove deadly, and as Lily had pointed out in her last letter Dumbledore had eyes and ears everywhere.

But that wasn’t why he couldn’t look at the boy. Nor was it Lily’s warnings, because even if she didn’t want them interacting, she did want him looking after the boy, and that usually involved visual observation. No, it wasn’t that—it was the spells.

The boy was layered in them. Severus had noticed them staring down at the boy from the dinner table Friday. There was layer after layer, each so carefully laid—diversions, yes, but not your basic notice-me-nots. He was almost certain there was a layer in there specifically for him, which made his eyes slip over the boy if he didn’t focus well enough. There were spells that would change memories, such that his voice never became too familiar or his face instantly recognizable, and knew that she had somehow managed to make it so his achievements would be overlooked.

And then there were the eyes, which stared at him so blankly as he rattled out the usual lecture. Perhaps they were even more despicable now that he knew they should be green like hers—he remembered that much, at least, from the one time he had met the child in his earlier years. Of course Lily would make sure to keep so much of herself away from him—but no, that wasn’t it at all. He knew there were rituals that began and ended in those eyes, and that they were the keystone to his whole disguise, but whatever it was she had done, they sat poorly on the boy’s face.

But he wouldn’t look—no, he wouldn’t, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist the urge to cast _just one_ charm to illuminate the runic structures he imagined the boy must be swimming in. He searched the classroom for a suitable victim— “Weasley,” he barked. “What are the seven ways you can vary the standard base?”

The red head gaped at him, his mouth opening and closing like a particularly dull fish, and Severus tried to let Lily’s spells do their work, so he could forget about the boy.

The one positive of working with first years was that a handful of them already had a basic understanding of the materials. In a later year, he would have dropped a book on Jeannot’s head to get the boy to look down at his page and take notes, but the boy already knew his way around a potions lab. He was tempted to hex the brat anyways, just to get the eyes off of him, but somehow he doubted that would do the least bit of good.

Instead he cut his lecture short and turned them loose on the bases they had been mulling. A standard base was more magically potent the longer it was brewed, and while it could be made in ten minutes any potioneers worth their salts let theirs mull for at least a week. However, the variation required careful calculations that he had required each of the pairs to make on their own. Too hot, and the liquid would begin to thicken, becoming cloudy. Too cool, and the ingredients would not dissolve, leaving the students with a cauldron of water and alchemical sand, exactly what they had started with. Time constraints of the class meant the children’s first attempt had only sat since their Tuesday class, but it would do for the purpose of their practical, which would not be producing potions for general consumption.

There was, of course, a table to easily find the numbers, but Severus’ favorite aspect of the introductory text was that it did not include any of that sort of pre-done work. They would not learn if they did not figure it out themselves, and no matter how little he thought of the students there were always a few worth trying to teach.

This year it looked to be a small number. Of the seven pairs that had managed to get their mixtures into their beakers (one had burnt, which meant they’d put something else in the cauldron, or perhaps hadn’t scrubbed it properly after their last lesson), three were cloudy, and one had been so under-heated it had not blended at all. The other four were passible, if run through a strainer to remove the extra filaments, and he would mix them together with a more potent base from his own stores for their use Friday.

In one way the first years were ahead of their age: already they had learned to take advantage when he let them out early. All but one was out of the classroom five minutes before the end of the period—he must be getting soft.

The last was Jeannot. Of course. This was Lily's son, after all, and 'considerate mutual distancing' was not a concept the brat would have formed yet. Instead he was dawdling, and waited until the last of his classmates were out of the room before looking up.

"Sir," he said. "I was wondering if we might be trying any of the variations."

Severus wanted to roll his eyes. It was an unfortunate side effect of spending much of one's time around teenagers; he had never quite lost their habits. Instead he picked up another beaker, holding it up to the light to examine the quality. "Everything is on your syllabus, Mr. Jeannot," he said. It was as mild a response as he could muster.

"Well, we have forty-two brewing sessions on schedule." Severus glanced down. The boy was incredibly earnest; he had probably counted every class. Severus felt something in his stomach sink. _He_ couldn't possibly be the potions enthusiast of his year, fate wouldn't—well, fate would. This was Severus’s life, after all. "But only a handful of them use the standard base, I think. And it wasn't marked if we would use the variations."

Severus set the beaker back on his desk, along with the others. "Then you'll have to develop some patience, Mr. Jeannot, and wait to see. Don't you have a class to get to?"

The boy's shoulders slumped, and he turned to walk towards the door. For a moment Severus dared hope he was free. A foolish hope, of course. The boy just had turn back around.

"It's because of my mother, isn't it," Jeannot said, his voice darker. He was caught in the shadow by the door, which was a relief, because Severus couldn't see those damn eyes with all that magic he was just itching to puzzle out. "She wrote something. I won't tell her anything that goes on here, you know." He seemed to look up a bit more, chin raising in something like a challenge. "And I'd appreciate if you didn't tell her anything about me."

Severus knew his mouth was hanging open, but he'd thought to cut off the child and missed his chance. Instead he stared. What did the boy think his mother had written? It sounded as though he expected his mother to have him spying after him, and Severus's thoughts darted back to the second letter she'd written. _If I needed some sort of spy in Hogwarts, I would have one, and the last person I would choose for that role is you._

The boy seemed to take his silence as an answer, because he finally left, the wooden door clicking softly shut behind him, but Severus's mind was racing. There was a chance that she did have a spy here, if the boy expected one, and if she did, they would have eyes on Severus. He was tasked with keeping the boy safe, and perhaps there was a greater expectation of danger than he had been led to expect.

But he didn’t have time! How was he supposed to keep track of an eleven-year-old in a magical castle, on top of experimenting with the Wolfsbane potion and his daily average of ten hours of class time?

But this was for Lily. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice: when the Dark Lord returned, he would be on her side, whatever side that was. If that meant spending his savings on a black market time-turner and employing a doppelgänger, then so it would be.

He knew the spell he needed. With more energy than he had thought he had left, he gathered the magic into his hand and practically flew out the door, all but crashing into the boy in his persuit. The wide grey eyes stared up at him, pulling away from the hand that had pressed the spell into his arm, and Severus sneered to hide the way his vision blurred as he let go of the charm, and he pushed past the boy and the waiting fifth years to stalk to his storage cupboard.

He hadn’t actually intended to get anything, but since he was there, he could use another pepperup. He choked it down and held back the bile rising in his gut, and forced himself to turn to face the next batch of students.

 

 

 

44.

 

Defense on Thursday found Jamie's headache tolerance point. He could not understand what it was about the Defense classroom that was triggering the headaches, but he knew there had to be something in there that was reminding him of something his mother had buried. It was like she had taken away half a puzzle and replaced it with a different one, and somehow managed to force the pieces to fit together, but now one of the removed pieces was trying to force its way back into place.

He had tried again to talk to Professor Snape on Thursday, but all he had gotten for his troubles was a blank stare and the sense that he was intruding somehow. The disappointment had quickly been lost beneath the headache that had come on from Quirrel's class, and then he had spent most of the afternoon recuperating in the Hospital Wing, once it became clear a low-dose pain potion was not going to do anything. Then, when he came back to the dorm in the evening, he had been informed that there had been an essay assigned; five feet, no less. He would have to take to the library for that one, since he had so far done terribly in paying attention in class. Not that he minded going to the library, but for all his love of reading Jamie was not an avid writer. It was too much work, he thought, and unlike mathematics language never met any two people the same way. Besides, he had an appreciation of good writing, and his never was.

Nott, luckily, had returned from the hospital wing Tuesday evening, so there hadn't been any trying to push Granger off onto the other Slytherins. The girl had paired up with Longbottom and Weasley for their Friday lesson, which had resulted in no less than forty points lost and detention for all three. Granger had looked mortified to get detention; Jamie imagined it was a first for the usually by-the-book rule-following girl. His and Millicent's partnership was set. He was fine with it; he was finding he liked her, despite her generally stony nature, and she usually followed his lead in the potions-making department.

Professor Snape still ignored him. Well, he had been unfortunately direct and probably bolloxed his chance.

As for the other Slytherins, Jamie was still unsure how he felt about the lot. Around Friday afternoon in particular, he found that Draco's constant talking was starting to get on his nerves. Not only did he never seem to shut up (Holly was just as talkative, but he still managed to love her) he was either going on about his Father, how great he was, or how stupid someone else was, both of which usually ended up with some secondary _My Father_ commentary anyways. It was downright depressing.

"Can't believe they won't let us bring our own brooms to learn on," the blond sneered as they all walked towards the front lawn, where they would be having flying lessons. "Father says the brooms here are an absolute disgrace. He's put in with Board of Governors, you know, to update the equipment. There's no reason at all to be learning on old Cleansweeps."

When they saw the brooms, laid out in two rows of ten in the grass, Jamie had to agree—he could hardly imagine they would fly straight at all, what with the twigs sticking out at odd angles and several of the handles spellotaped back together from some nasty break or another. But he didn't care much for Draco's vocal contriteness, either. When the Gryffindors came down, Draco was sure to say loudly, "Of course, this is probably a luxury for Weasley. Can't imagine _his_ family would be able to afford a broom at all, really."

Madame Hooch had called the class to attention before Weasley could respond. The witch was a strange-looking woman, with eyes like hawk’s and short hair that stuck up in every direction, as though she’d been struck by lightning while out flying and never recovered. She also had a sense of impatience about her that had the first years hurrying to try and take the least beat-up brooms. Jamie made sure not to take the broom next to Draco, even though he often found himself walking in the usual group alongside the other boy, choosing instead to stand between Millicent and Longbottom.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Hooch asked, when she turned and saw them all waiting for instructions. “Right hand out, say ‘up’. Come on now.”

Jamie waited a moment, watching the others before he tried. For several, the brooms came up right away. Weasley, still red with indignation, called his broom so forcefully it came up and snapped him in the face, creating some jostling between him and his neighbors. Granger’s rolled around in the grass, no matter how impatient her commands got, and Longbottom’s didn’t move at all.

He looked down at his own broom. He’d never really tried picking up a broom this way—he couldn’t remember the first time he'd gone flying on his little hover broom, and after that the transition to an actual broom had been no more different than taking training wheels off a bike. He'd read a book, _Quiddich Through the Ages_ , that mentioned the 'up' method—several quiddich players would pick up their brooms like this before every game, to focus on their broom to make sure they were in sync.

Jamie frowned. He wasn't sure how someone could be in sync with a broom, or out of it, but he supposed...

"Up," he said softly, opening up his hand.

The broom snapped to it.

Eventually Madame Hooch got tired of waiting. "Just pick it up, Longbottom—now, everyone put one leg over their broom. Hold the handle like this—no, Malfoy, that's—just no. Put your hands like this, see? Good. Now on the count of three, you're all going to kick off, hover in the air for a moment, and then touch back down. One, two—"

Several of the first years, most notably Lavender Brown, the Gryffindor, tried to jump up, and landed in heaps on the grass. Brown in particular toppled head over heels, crashing into Madame Hooch.

Jamie, comfortable on his broom, had to reach out to steady Longbottom, who was threatening to float up into the distance. It took a rather forceful tug to bring the boy back down, and he gave Jamie a shaky look. "Th—thanks," he stammered. "I, er, it—"

"Relax," Jamie said. He climbed off his broom easily, trying to project some sort of calmness for the Gryffindor to imitate. "You're going to hurt yourself if you're not relaxed."

"R—right," the boy said, huffing and looking down at the broom in his hands. "Me. Relaxed." He turned bright pink, suddenly seeming to realize that Jamie was still paying attention, and jumped left, crashing into Pansy Parkinson, who had gotten stuck on the end next to him. "S—sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Shut up, Longbottom," she snapped. She shot Jamie a contemptuous glare, as though it was his fault the boy was talking to her at all. But then he felt Millicent tapping him on the shoulder.

"What?" he asked, turning around and coming face-to-face with Madame Hooch, who had apparently been waiting for him.

"Go on then," she said. The other first years up the line were snickering at him. "Kick off!"

Jamie blinked and, easily as he could with the bird-like woman glaring down at him, swung his leg back over his broom and hovered for a moment. She clicked her tongue, leaning this way and that to look at his grip, and glanced back up at him, before shaking her head and making a mark on her clipboard and stepping on. Jamie got down and glanced at Millicent, but she just shrugged.

"Well, Longbottom?" Madame Hooch was saying. Longbottom had turned an even darker shade of red, and seemed flummoxed to have everyone staring at him. When he climbed on to his broom, he went shooting straight up faster than Jamie could snag him.

“Longbottom!” Hooch shrieked. “Get down here!”

After a few seconds, it was abundantly clear that Longbottom wanted nothing more than to be on the ground, but was having some trouble getting there. Hooch grabbed Jamie's broom out of his hands and was practically in the air before she had even gotten her leg over. She shot after the boy faster than he thought a Cleansweep could go, but the second before she reached him Longbottom's broom darted away, speeding towards the castle, and he was only stopped when it crashed straight into the wall and he went tumbling down.

The students ran over, but Hooch reached him first, leaping off the broom and crouching over him. By the time the other first years had reached them, it was to hear her proclaim, "Broken wrist!" over Longbottom's moaning. She helped him to his feet, and turned sharply on the students. "I'm taking Longbottom to the Hospital Wing. Two feet firmly on the ground until I get back, you hear? Any one of you thinks about flying, I’ll have you expelled before you can say ‘quiddich.’" Her glare bore down on all of them, but by now they'd had Snape for two weeks, and weren't exactly intimidated. Besides, Longbottom moaned again, and that was enough to get her to help him limp off in the direction of the Hospital.

"Look," someone said as soon as she was out of sight. It was Draco—of course it was. He picked something up off the grass near where Longbottom's broom had landed, and held it up for the class to see. "Longbottom's forgotten his remembrall!"

Jamie glanced at the little glass ball the blond was holding up. He wondered why exactly Longbottom had brought a remembrall to flying lessons—why he had a remembrall at all, really, since they weren't exactly the most useful things, and pointlessly expensive at that. Sure, Longbottom was a pureblood, but he wasn't exactly another Draco with his need to show off his wealth at every chance he got. Well, Jamie supposed—he’d only paid enough attention to Longbottom to know that he was pants at most every magic but herbology, and prone to having fits of nerves in potions. Snape seemed to pay as little attention to Longbottom as he did to Jamie, but he had already earned a detention from the class, so he was probably pants at potions as well.

Still, pants or no, when Draco suggested leaving the remembrall somewhere for Longbottom to find, Jamie felt himself go still. That wasn't just picking on a Gryffindor, that was stealing.

"Give it back, Malfoy," Granger said forcefully, stepping forward. Draco took a step back, as though he were alarmed by her proximity, but then forced himself to smile.

"What, are you going to stop me?" he asked, swinging his leg over his broom.

"Madam Hooch said to stay on the ground!"

"Blaise, do you see anyone flying?" Draco asked as he kicked off.

Blaise looked up, raising an eyebrow. "Not really," he drawled. He didn't seem entirely interested in the situation, but then again, Jamie had yet to see Blaise interested in anything beyond a good chess match.

Granger looked down again, turning her glare on the other Slytherins. "Aren't any of you going to do anything?" she demanded. "He's one of your housemates, after all. If he gets caught, he’s going to be expelled."

“ _He_ won’t be expelled,” Weasley muttered from behind her. Granger spun around.

“Madame Hooch said—”

“It’s Malfoy, Granger. He’d have to kill someone before they’d let the school get away with expelling _him._ ”

“Well, I don’t see you doing anything, Ronald!”

Draco sped off toward the roof, tucking the glass ball in the mouth of a gargoyle, did a quick loop around them and landed. Jamie wanted to roll his eyes—Draco was a decent flyer, apparently, but nothing worth trying to show off—but instead stared intently at the gargoyle. With Longbottom's luck, it would probably be animate and crush the ball before anyone would retrieve it for him.

Not a minute after Draco landed, Madame Hooch returned.

"We've lost half our lesson, so hurry up. Everyone up on their brooms."

"Madame Hooch—"

"Not now, Granger. We've work to do. Come on then. Up! Just hover for a moment."

The rest of the lesson went on like this, Madame Hooch ignoring Granger at every turn and Draco seeing fit to make faces at her whenever the woman's back was turned. Jamie wanted to yell at both of them—the flying instructor, that was, for not paying attention to Granger, and Draco for being an utter arse. Instead he focused on staying on his broom and not causing too much trouble.

But when the lesson was over, he found himself glancing up at the gargoyle. Millicent grabbed him and pulled him along. "Don't even think about it," she hissed.

"Think about what?"

She stomped on his foot. "Be Slytherin for once," she said. "I don't want to lose my potions partner because he thought it was worth it to cause trouble for Malfoy."

Jamie gave her a look, but let himself be dragged along. It wasn't Malfoy he was thinking about, really. The blond boy would probably forget about the glass ball within the hour. It was Longbottom, who hadn't done anything to deserve that, and Hermione, not understanding what Weasley meant when he said a Malfoy wouldn't be expelled, that had him trying to determine what part of the castle the gargoyle was sticking out of.

 

 

*

_L,_

_Notes received. Seem to be missing part of the Warkleson article. He was about to discuss the alchemical properties of aconite from a strictly elemental standpoint where it cut off. Page twenty-seven. Don't know if that would be useful or not._

_You should be able to get hold of lab rats from Germany—under Grindlewald they perfected the lycan equivalent biology. I cannot import them here. You will have to test at the full moon, of course, so for the moment I will make a straight batch by your notes. A few possible edits to the method, namely in the stirring pattern; I'll diagram when I get a moment to breathe._

_Need a description of R.L.'s symptoms. It could be the aconite is building up in his system, in which case there is nothing to be done but either lessen the dose and hope it is potent enough to still sedate the beast, or take him off entirely for a recovery period. In the meantime: check his base nutrient levels. Make sure of a full nutrient potion in his system at least twenty-four hours before moonrise. The stronger the man to begin with, the less dangerous the transitions will be._

_Have you had him contact any of the packs in Europe? Their way of life may be... counterintuitive to the lifestyle R.L. wishes to lead, but lore passed through their generations would be worth more than my extrapolation from human sources alone._

_If someone is at Hogwarts, you should let J. know. If he thinks I'm the only one here who knows who he is, I loathe the inevitable meltdown that will occur in my office. I will not tell him what you've asked of me, because apparently you did not tell him, but already he seems to be looking for a greater discourse than you have instructed me to have with him._

_If you go to Germany, contact the brewer Kass Haack, in Frankfurt. He owes me a favor; tell him I've said this will count. Don't mind the smell of the place; he's an absolute incompetent when it comes to potions, but he has a gift for getting his hands on contraband._

_S_

 

 

 

 

45.

 

"And that was when he fell off his broom," Draco told the second years who had sat beside them at the dinner table. "Screaming all the way down. Well, it was more a piggish squeal, really."

Jamie poked at his potatoes. They had lost interest to him since Draco had started talking. He was finding it hard to focus on anything the others said, really, when he was so fixated on the remembrall.

Longbottom had not come up to dinner, and the tale of how he had crashed his broom into the castle was spreading across the Great Hall while they ate supper. No doubt by the next day half the school would know. It was lucky for Longbottom it was a Friday, as they wouldn't have class the following day, and he wouldn't have to face the jeers in the hallways or Draco's obnoxious miming.

At last Jamie stood up, ignoring the glance he got from Pansy for cutting off Draco's sentence. "I'm going to the library," he said, when he realized they expected an explanation. Draco shrugged and turned back to the second years, but Pansy stared at him.

"The library? Really?" she said. "It's Friday evening, Jeannot."

"So no one else will be in there, and I can get the best books to work on the defense essay," he said.

"Suit yourself," she said. "But aren't you at least staying for dessert?"

"I'm not really hungry."

He turned and hurried out of the hall, dodging around a group of Ravenclaws just making their way in, and turned to hurry towards the dorms when someone called out his name. "Jeannot!"

He turned back, finding Millicent rushing after him. "They really are going to think we're friends or something, the way we keep leaving together," he pointed out. Millicent just scowled and pulled him towards the stairs, but Jamie pulled his arm out of her grip. "I'm going that way already, Millicent. You don't need to grab me."

"Then hurry up," she snapped, letting go and practically running down the stairs.

He hurried after her. "What's the rush?" he asked. "The library isn't going anywhere you—hey!"

She grabbed him and pulled him around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, pushing him down into a hallway he'd never used. "You are being," she hissed, "extremely obvious!"

Jamie blinked. "About going to the library?" he asked. "Is it that bad to want to get my homework done early?"

"Not that," she snapped. "You're not going to the library, and we both know it, so stop going on about that. You're going to try to get back that—that thing of Longbottom's."

"That obvious," he said darkly. "Well, Draco didn't seem to notice, did he? Are you going to tell him?"

"Of course not, but that doesn't matter. What if one of them goes looking for you in the library? Now that you've let everyone know exactly where you're supposed to be hiding?"

"It's a big library," he said. He'd only been there three times so far, and had been surprised to see how far back the stacks twisted and turned. "But none of them are going to go looking for me, you know."

"What do you call this, then?" Millicent demanded.

"Honestly? I think you're the only one who pays attention to half of what I say." That didn't bother Jamie as much as he thought it should, considering that all he had wanted while he was in France was to have magical friends of his own age, and Millicent wasn't exactly looking for a friendship, as far as he could tell. Although... "And why are you here, anyways?"

"Because you're proving yourself less and less Slytherin by the second," she said. "How, exactly, are you planning to get the thing back? How will it not end with you expelled, and the house short a hundred points at least? Or dead for that matter?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be very Slytherin of me, would it?" he said. "And don't be so dramatic. I'm not going to die. And if I were, you'd be no worse off for it, really. One less classmate bad at being Slytherin to worry about, right?" He paused, surprised to see her face twist as though she had tasted something bitter, though he couldn't imagine why. "Really, Millicent. If you're worried about losing your potions partner, I promise that if I do die, I'll come back as a ghost and partner up with you anyways."

She made a sound that sounded like Pudge when he went after a foot and stepped back. “You’re a right git, you know that?”

“Well, I’m trying not to be, if you hadn’t noticed!”

She turned and stormed up the stairs again.

Jamie stared after her for a second, but shook his head and hurried on towards the dorms. He needed to make it before anyone else came down from dinner, and wasn't sure why Millicent was trying to hold him up. Sure, he wasn't being Slytherin by helping Longbottom, but if being Slytherin meant he never did what he thought was right, or standing by while his classmates bullied each other, then he didn't want to be Slytherin. He didn't like bullies.

Luckily, Millicent's delay hadn't been that much of a hold up, and no one else was back. He crossed the common room and dashed up the stairs, dragging his trunk out from under his bed and shifting some of his muggle things out of the way. At the bottom was a false compartment, which he knocked on three times, and the back panel slid away. Beneath it was tucked his father's invisibility cloak.

Technically, his mother had told him not to use it unless he absolutely needed to, and that she was giving it to him only as a safety precaution. Sirius had encouraged him to use it for pranking, but he hadn't found any reason to prank anyone yet—though Draco was getting up there—and he had respected his mother's grim warnings enough to tell himself that even if he did find some prank to pull, he'd do it without the cloak. He hadn't told Sirius that. Sirius was insistent that he ought to carry on the Marauder's trend of mischief, and that it was the best way to make his father proud of his use of it. Frankly, Jamie thought his father would be more proud of him if he used the cloak for something nobler—something like retrieving the remembrall from the roof. Or at least, he should be more proud. He didn't know James Potter, or that much about Regulus Black, for that matter, so he wasn't sure that either of them would commend him for this plan.

Luckily, he wasn't doing it for his father or the story his mother had concocted, and he hurriedly swung the cloak over himself. It was well over large enough to fit himself and his bag with room to spare, seeming to have been designed for an adult at least eight feet tall. He had to hike up the bottom to keep himself from tripping over it as he ran back down the stairs and waited by the entrance to the common room for a group to come in. It reminded him, of all things, of the way women in Victorian movies had to hike up their skirts to be able to move anywhere—or like Cinderella running out of the castle before midnight struck. The thought of himself as Cinderella was inexplicably funny. Nerves, perhaps, not helped by the way he had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from giggling as a group of fourth-years came in.

The gargoyle, he figured, had to be close to the transfiguration classroom, so he hurried through the castle to west side. There he checked each hall until he found a stairway up to a small tower—an observation spot of some sort, short enough that he wouldn't overshoot his goal by too much. Sure enough, a small wooden door led to a small circular platform, and there was nothing but a short railing to keep him off the roof.

As he clambered over the railing, he quickly realized exactly how lucky it was it hadn't rained that day. As it was, the roof slats were difficult to scramble across, let alone to keep his balance. He did his best to edge along slowly, making his way toward the first gargoyle down the row. Just when he was about a meter from it, a slat slipped out from under his step, and he had to leap forward and grab for the gargoyle to stop from slipping off the roof.

When he was certain he wasn't falling to his death, he tilted his head up just enough to glance around. The drop before him was sickening when his balance was this precarious. It was getting dark out already, and the grass was getting hard to see. Why had he not stolen a broom? It would have been much safer.

But he hadn't, and there was no use going back now. He took a moment to regain his nerves, before slowly moving his arm to try to straighten up a bit. The moment he moved, he heard a squawking, and a pair of birds rushed out of the gargoyle’s open math, startling him to let go, nearly lose his balance, and grab for the gargoyle again, clinging to the stone horns.

The next thing he knew, the stone was shifting underneath him. The gargoyle lurched, and Jamie looked up in horror as it spat the nest the two birds had built in it's mouth out. It turned it's gruesome face back as he let go and leaned against the roof, and it's eyes narrowed when it found nothing behind it.

"There's someone there, in't there?" it demanded, it's accent thick even through the gravely voice. "I felt ye grabbin' at me ears."

"Yes," Jamie whispered. "I'm sorry if I hurt you."

"Sorry?" the stone creature laughed, curling it's lips away from two rows of sharp teeth and stretching out it's wings. "I've been tryin' to get them damn birdies outta me mouth for a month. I ent angry, no." It narrowed its eyes, squinting. "But what are ya, then? Why cannae I see ya? And what are you doin' at my perch?"

"S—someone lost something up here," Jamie said, trying to swallow his nerves. "And I'm the only one who'll get it back, see."

"So you're climbin' 'round on the roof? You're a student, en't ya? Dumbledore will have your head!" The gargoyle paused. "Do they do that anymore? Beheadings? Have ya a head, anyhow?"

"They've beheaded people at Hogwarts?" Jamie asked in disturbed amazement.

"Ay, a dozen odd poor souls. 'ts been some time, I think."

Jamie opened his mouth to question the gargoyle about that, but then the sparrows came back around, shrieking, and he cowered against the slats. The gargoyle opened it's wings and snarled at them. "Last time I fall 'sleep with me mouth open," it grumbled when they were gone again. He squinted towards Jamie again, his wings reaching forwards as though he were trying to find the boy. Jamie shrunk into a crouch and edged past the block the gargoyle was perched on, swallowing as he moved past it with only the weathervane between his unsteady feet and a long fall followed by an drop with a sudden end.

"I'm just going to go find the—thing," he said. "You'll just... wait here, right?"

"Can't go anywhere else," the gargoyle grumbled, swinging its head to track Jamie's voice. "Not without the headmaster's orders."

With that, Jamie edged his way along the roof. He couldn't move too slowly if he wanted to be safe, but the sun was setting. Any other place he might have paused to enjoy the view, but instead he crept along to the next gargoyle. This one was missing half a horn, but didn't have a remembrall in it's mouth either, so Jamie looked on to the next one. Luckily he hadn't taken off his glasses, because just as he was thinking it would be best to give up his quest and retreat to safety, he saw something glint with the sunset's orange light. It was the remembrall!

Relieved to have the end in sight, he started moving again, but was knocked off his feet into the roof when the gargoyle he had been crouched behind whipped around. "Who's there?" it demanded. Even missing one horn, and with cracks down it's face, it was a fearsome sight—even more fearsome than the last. Jamie wasn't thinking this, however; he was rolling to the side to dodge the clawed ends of the wings as it tried to pin him down. Once, twice—then, on the third time, it succeeded, snagging the cloak and burrowing into the roof.

Jamie grabbed the shimmering cloth and pulled hard as he could, but it just dragged the gargoyle's talon closer to him. It reached out with one of it's grotesquely clawed arms towards him, and Jamie pulled again, to no avail. This time he knew it was going to stab him. The claw was deeply lodged in the roof tiles, and in a moment it’s arm would be deeply lodged in his body. It pulled back the other wing and poised it with the arm, seeming to meet Jamie’s eyes despite the cloak, and it was about to—

Suddenly it turned away. Jamie could hear the other gargoyle shouting, but he didn't wait to hear what it was saying, and yanked the cloak with whatever energy he had left in his arms. The claw pulled out from the roof, and Jamie went toppling back, and rolled twice before he managed to get his footing and turned to run—only  to put a foot through the weathervane and then he was over the edge, rushing down—

He didn't reach the bottom. In fact, he barely went more than a meter, because the cloak, long as it was, and somehow sturdy enough to avoid tearing under a gargoyle's claw or any amount of force, had snagged. He dangled midair, scarcely remembering to breathe, until the groaning of the weathervane above him jolted him back into the present.

He looked up, and saw the third gargoyle peering down at him. It had the cloak pinned between its claw and the roof, and was peering as curiously as the first had into the air where Jamie hung, invisible. His breath caught in his throat again, but it couldn't see him, and shrugged it off, beginning to move—

"WAIT!" Jamie shouted.

The gargoyle, luckily, froze.

Jamie struggled to free one of his arms from the vice-like restriction of the taut cloak, and when he could he flipped the long hood away from his head. The gargoyle started in shock. "Please don't let me fall," Jamie begged. He became aware he was crying. "Please. You're holding my cloak up."

The gargoyle blinked again. It's mouth was stuck around the remembrall, Jamie realized, and this one had vines growing up over it's one arm, the other having broken off at some point, leaving nothing but a sharp crater in the stone. It tilted its head to peer at where it's wing-talon had pinned the cloak, looked back to Jamie, and seemed to make up it's mind.

For a second Jamie thought it was going to stab him with it's other wing, but instead it groped about until its claw snagged on the hood, and pulled him up so Jamie was resting on the stone in front of it.

He wrapped his arms around the gargoyle and sobbed.

It was a minute before he registered the tapping on his shoulder. He pulled his tear-stained face out from the ivy and leaned back at little as he could manage. The gargoyle was looking down at him, blinking slowly. It made a sort of wind-like sound around the remembrall, and Jamie realized that with the glass orb in it's mouth it couldn't speak. He tangled one hand in the vines of the ivy and reached up, delicately taking the glass ball from the creature’s beaklike mouth, and pulled it back.

"Thanks," the gargoyle hissed. This one had a voice that reminded Jamie suddenly of the long grass outside of the manor, rustling late at night. Its horns were curled like a ram’s, and beneath the black lichen crusting over its face he could see its stone was carved with scales or feathers of come sort.

“Thank you for saving me,” he said back. It came out more as a sob, but he was at least able to form the words. “I thought I was going to die.”

It blinked at him in surprise. “What are you doing up on the roof?” it whispered. “The only _human_ creatures who come up here are here to play tricks, or to jump to their doom.”

Jamie held up the remembrall. It glowed orange in the sunset. “I’m here for this,” he said. He swallowed, trying to stop his tears, but he didn’t want to use the sleeve of the invisibility cloak as a handkerchief. "The—the boy that brought it up here, he's my classmate, and it's not his..."

"Why did you not fly as he did?" the gargoyle asked.

"I don't have a broom," Jamie said miserably. He resisted the urge to laugh, knowing that as soon as he did, he would surely burst into hysterics. "I—I wasn't thinking. I thought it would be easy. With this cloak."

The gargoyle hissed, but it looked pensive, so Jamie assumed it was more of a hum than any sort of irritation. "Well, now you have your little magic ball," it said. "You should get off the roof. But..."

Jamie glanced over his shoulder. The first and second gargoyles appeared to be arguing, but he couldn't make out the words they were shouting back and forth. He hoped no one inside could hear them.

"Well," the gargoyle said. "That's it, then. You must untangle these vines, and I will fly you to that tower."

"Untangle the vines?" Jamie repeated. The gargoyle shifted, and he scrambled to get a better grip, but the gargoyle was just proving its point: it could not move for the way they twisted around them. "But the—the other gargoyle said you couldn't fly without the headmaster's order."

It clicked its tongue against its stone beak. "That stone cow is lazier than anything else," it hissed. "Come, now. The sun is almost set."

Jamie didn't see what his other option was—he wasn't about to try to walk back along the roof again, not now after he had nearly fallen. So he tucked the remembrall down the front of his shirt and set about tearing at the ivy. He was surprised how tightly it clung—his hands began to bleed in several places, but he kept at it, aided by the gargoyle once its one arm was free.

At last it was able to shake off the last clinging vines, and it wrapped its arm around Jamie, bringing him close to its body. He must have screamed when it took off, but almost before he had realized it the gargoyle had dropped him on the tower platform, his glasses finally jolting off his head.

Rubbing his back, he glanced up to where the creature was perched on the railing, peering down at him. It must look strange, he realized, to only see a head.

"Thanks," he mumbled weakly, patting around until he found his glasses and shoved them back on his face.

"Do me a favor," it said. Jamie nodded; the beast had just saved his life, after all. "Don't come up here again."

It took off again before Jamie could laugh. Come back? He reckoned he'd have enough trouble getting onto his broom again, after that experience. It swooped away, and once again he remembered his childhood aspiration of becoming a dragon. It would have been better if he were, he supposed, since he would have been able to fly himself to safety. All the same, he was glad to be a land-dwelling creature.

Once he'd caught his breath, he flipped the hood back over his head and slowly made his way down the stairs and through the wooden door. When it closed behind him, he paused to lean back against it, taking a deep breath and waiting to calm his still fluttering heart.

Millicent had been right: this was a stupid idea.

When he opened his eyes again, his heart stopped once again. There, at the end of the hall, was Professor Snape, staring up at the roof with a peculiar expression on his face, his mouth hanging half-open. For a moment Jamie forgot he was invisible under the cloak, but then the potions master took a step forward, leaning to peer up out the window. Jamie leaned forward just enough to see out as well, and was surprised to see not just the gargoyle that had saved him, but also the other two swooping about. Taking advantage of Snape's confusion, he edged away from the door, and just in time: Snape rushed forward and swung it open, storming up the steps.

He wasn't sure what the Professor was doing up here, or what he expected to find on the roof, but Jamie ran before he could find out. He made it all the way to the first floor before he remembered his plan. Making sure to step back behind a column where no one would see him, he shrugged off the cloak, quickly folded it, and tucked it into his bag. Then he pulled the remembrall out of his shirt and shoved it in as well before anyone could come along, and hurried towards the hospital wing. At least now he had an excuse: his hand was bleeding, and there were plenty of rough spots of stone in the castle that he could have tripped and fallen on. He did his best to flatten down his hair with the one that stung less, and just before he went through the door he remembered to take off his glasses again. He didn't know who all would recognize the glasses as James Potter's own, but he was hoping to put off that explanation as long as he could, because frankly, it was one of his mother's less brilliant ones.

The hospital wing was nearly silent. He closed the door behind him and crept forward. Longbottom, it seemed, was in the bed closest to Madame Pomfrey's office. When he got close the matron came hurrying out, holding a finger to her lip as she ushered him to sit at the end of the bed across the aisle.

"He's just fallen asleep," she said quietly. "Several bone fractures, you know. Couldn't just heal him as fast as I'd like. Now, what is it, Mr. Jeannot? A headache again?"

He shook his head, holding up his hands. "I—I tripped," he said softly. He looked away, doing his best to be embarrassed. Well, it was a pretty terrible lie, so that was worth being embarrassed over. The woman made a sound like a _tsk_. "I wasn't paying attention—do you have some alcohol I could wash these with? Or a bandage?"

His act seemed to work, because when he glanced up again her face had softened. "Muggle-raised?" she asked.

"Uhm. Partially?"

"I'll get you some salve," she said. "Just wait here a minute, dear." She turned to go back into her office, and the moment she was past the door Jamie leapt up, peering after her. Her office, it seemed, was long, filled with filing cabinets, and at the very back was another door. He supposed that was where she stored all her potions and things. While she was moving, he hurried to Longbottom's bedside and pulled out the remembrall.

For a moment, he stared at it. It was still glowing orange, but he was out of the sunset now. He didn't have time to dwell on it, however, and quickly glanced up to make sure Longbottom was really asleep, then tucked the glass ball under the covers on his left side and hurried back to the other bed. When Madam Pomfrey came back in a moment later, she found him staring at his hands, but that wasn't so odd, considering they were injured. First she took a washcloth and wiped the blood away. If she noticed all the grime, she didn't comment, setting the cloth aside and bringing forward a small clay jar filled with a white ointment that smelled strongly of spearmint. Carefully she dabbed it onto his hands. It stung a bit, but like the one Remus had used when he'd punched the mirror it quickly faded into a cooling sensation, and only then did he realize how badly the cuts had been stinging. He blinked, watching as the skin seemed to stitch itself together, leaving only white lines on his hands.

"There," she said, folding her hands over his. He looked up to meet her smiling eyes, and mirrored her expression automatically. "All better. Now run along, back to your dormitory. It's nearly curfew, after all."

Jamie nodded, and stood up. He knew he said 'thank you', but he wasn't processing anything, instead glancing over towards Longbottom's bed, where he knew the remembrall was tucked away. But he forced himself to turn away and hurry out.

That was the thing about remembralls, after all. They wouldn't tell you what you'd forgotten.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, another chapter! Which I'm very excited to have posted, because this brings me up to over 100k! (cue the confetti and party horn thingies).
> 
> I'll try to write some more over my winter break, but I have finals in between, so we'll see what happens. In any case, we'll be starting on a new arc in the story. For your little teaser, you get the title: The Girl in the Library (which sounds like a mashup between 'The Girl in the Fireplace' and 'Silence in the Library', but.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! If you've made it this far, I'm quite impressed. Thank you for reading.
> 
> This story has been in my head for a while. Unfortunately, that means that it has grown to something quite large. Most of the writing that will be posted for some time to come is the result of NaNoWriMo this year, in which I finally committed myself to working on this seriously.
> 
> What this means for you is that there is a guaranteed 50,000 words coming. Although I will be spreading out posting (hopefully on a weekly basis, for now), every chapter has to be edited before it can be posted, and I am a full time university student--in other words, lacking in time. So past that first 50,000? We'll see what happens. It may be slower. 
> 
> With any luck, we will be able to take this story through to the end.
> 
> For now, I'm going to be updating tags on a one-chapter-behind basis. If any per-chapter warnings are necessary, therefore, I'll post them at the beginning of the chapter. I don't see that happening any time soon, but know that I do not tag for swearing or general character death. The main issue I think might arise is bullying and (separately) potential violence, though I wouldn't be surprised if we face character development that takes a turn for the worse.
> 
> However, if you'd like to keep reading this story but would like me to tag any specific trigger warnings, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message, here or on tumblr (same username). While I am sensitive to very little in terms of writing, I know that many people are, and am personally happy to leave warnings. You just need to ask.
> 
> As always, thank you! Your comments fuel the lazy writer off of Tumblr and onto Word.


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